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Michael R Bryant Jul 2010
Happy little earthworm
Excited as he can be
Invited for an outing
Was hoping he was free

An invitation sent quickly
An answer sent so soon
Reply, my family has to go as well
And we can’t stay out past noon

No worry, there is room for all
They’ll know what they’d be missing
Past noon, no problem there you see
We are only going fishing
Brandon Mar 2012
Earthworm inching around on wet concrete
Searching for open ground to burrow in
Before the heat of the sun
Sizzles away the leftovers
Of early morning rain
I look up to god
When I'm drunk

because

He's a view to
Crane my neck to.-

gets in the way

~

Your fate is to die in the earthworm's stomach;

Deploy detail from your life
and digitize a seance for its-self

alone

only one who knows you
is

. . .

Could you even
defy Hershey's grip,
you sodomite?

Playing @
these sorts of extracurricular fights

It's truly
earthworm's who will deliver you right-

ly a quick and sympathetic death.

~

but f٭٭k it. Roach
Away floods my feet,
and factions divide my liver;
i am hardly
flotsam.

I'm adjectives of wreck,
synonyms of much
deprived floods of
smoke. Such that shuts
me away, away, away.
Fate-funs break my spirit-
and you run,
you run!

How dare you rush like sequin
onto any bare skin surface-
you chocolate, running.
I hate you

I hate you all.

Do not develop emotions,
or ****;

and by all means,
despise yourself.

And,

waste

apart from mind.

Be you in an earthworm's behind.

~

F٭٭٭٭٭g a challenging nothing.
I want you to be something,
anything.

Nun me. I would make
many-***** out of your pieces
of cake.
I hate you.

I hate you all.

You. F٭٭٭٭٭g. Lottery. Punks.

The lines in my face are a perfect sum
of the precise faults of
the earthworm's gut.

~

Your neurotic monks-
you've got me
addicted
to a specific death

My fate is to develop in the earthworm's gut.

/

Maybe I'll experiment with blood

Maybe I'll experiment with bloodK٭٭l me quickly

K٭٭l me quickly

Maybe I'll adhere with burns

Maybe I'll steer me under
under
under
ground

Milk me quickly

I can’t be a suicidal sine
serving a princess-and-the-pea type mind

Maybe I’ll try to be a DeviantArt update,
desperate emotion bemusing in keystroke

I’ll experiment with light

I’ll imperialize her fuse

Fill yr unsanitized fins with

Ifs

and maybe I'll experiment with ***

Maybe I'll rip you from your life

Ifs spit from naked myth

K٭٭l me quickly,

you horrible,

you gorgeous

earthworm spit.
from february 22, 2024
poem from the past a day #61
a what a bad past it was.
this is a fully unhinged piece of writing.
this is drunk writing. i was on some worm stuff.
but that's the vibe- that's the point.
i can't explain any of it.
wehttam Jun 2014
May be I’ll start writing, today.  
The story of Zen Zero.

I realized that all good things come to an end.  The tears, the affairs, and even the faintest revelation about my relationship to the Emperor of Japan.  I’ll need help and... well, the truth can be tolled.  It can be that the faintest belief, that we as free people are subject to the king, our God.
A king stands in truth as our kin.  The love that has existed for a thousand years, about justice, permanence, and legend are here.
It all started 7 years ago.  According to the book of John, the 3rd book.  The face of his majesty does have an Imperial Guardian.  In any colour, red, black, blue, white, and even green.  Each color resembles the color of trust.  
I started training in the Emperor's garden at the age of negative 6.  Before my mother can conceive her unborn child in a marriage.  Like the burning of Shin Cho' Palace.  
"Oh, how they forget so quickly, the truth?" says my mother.
They forget so quickly the majesty and power of the Emperor's memory of Mother Japan.  In his Majesty's eyes, how many lovers stir the colors of benevolence.  Where and when does it exist and stop for us as an American patriot sold to slavery for spy’s.  All of his subjects do will and listen to the cry of patience in his family’s quarters.  
My father at the time of his marriage did not know the Emperor's name, I had asked my mother in her heart if she knew the king.  They are no longer married.  They had tried to burn down the Emperor's Palace with a marriage.  But I had already existed, in the love of my family at a wedding joining men and women.  I remember some singing, all though in my mother’s ears, really bad singing. In her head or mine at the wedding, whichever is greater.  Maybe the song was worthless or was the singer already lifting her fingers to strike matches on the bamboo fortress of the young emperor.  
They have had many statesmen destroy the dream that Japan has.  Through lies, corruption, and *******.  Each of the last three I had to conquer to be his Majesty's Justice.  I did not earn the right to judge any such subject or people, it was given freely at that time to children.  I had learned to love the Emperor, even in my own desire to please him and her.  
The lies were towering revelations about the coming of man in God's kingdom, and how the will of imperial veils never existed for the properties of mankind.  The corruption was the setting of dowers or dowries for the subject of lost families, in the forbearance of lucher escaped only by the luck of liars.  And then the dreams of revelry, owned by the ungodly and chaste men of the burning palace, whether sediscious, or whether the fables absolving time in the palace to a judgment had already met the Emperor.  
All of the priests (pre-ests) had to pray; for the remaining time of eternity, for the true judgment of his Majesty's subjects. It was to be taken from the subject of srys to the Emperor's Knight.  
To many were lost in the munitions of war.  Laws that govern and sanction truths were not available to those of absolute corruption.  Stalwarts, stonewallers, and stoners were becoming of the anti-gentry.  The laws were never to be discouraged by zeal, or by trial.  The laws had to represent the ability of love to change time even if the object of factions destroyed the old way.  They had taken the truth to prepare Neoteny for where the first Imperial Guard had placed his head.  The first Imperial Guard, that I became before birth had taken his own head with a weapon made by treason.  
My mother’s dress was made out of spider silk.  A giant spider played Chinese checkers with the Imperial Guard for my head also.  Never the less, the palace, this time was not burned.  The dress was made out of falling stars and spiders silk.  She had found the Emperor's tailor and traded my soul for the wedding.  The pictures that were retrieved from the wedding of my mother and father have ruminated in antiquity since the time until by birth my life.  The seers and srys wanted my head to take up the Emperor's chalice.  His cup, filled with my blood, Simian blood.  
I did not want to go through with it, birth and death before becoming subject to royalty.  Seeing the world before consummation, as I had was never thought of, it was seen as impossible unless by treason we had chided a woman of royalty.  
I have seen the last major asteroid go through our galaxy before it had ever had been a present particle of mutiny.   It proved to the child (myself) in gestation, between man woman at the wedding that time will pass just as quickly before my mind’s eye as it had at the day of Pentecost.   More than 500 billon people were to be saved by God rather than by a humble dismantling of a defense lawyer.
I had seen how flowers are made by tiny Zen Zero bumble bees going to and leaving from daisies and roses, and orchids.  How each seed takes roots and as do the munitions for treason and tears; how each man whom chooses to change their name because of treason begins to understand change when his wife chooses his name.  (The reference is to Zero attacks, suicide attacks.)  How the time and life and essence of life begins in literacy as a language of love.  Every old man on earth can help me write the scripts, but can the country of old men help me change the prophet?
As long as there is war in the palace there will be treason?
The spirit of the samurai was trying the youth in the palace.  From the first born male to the last lady in quixic geisha.  All uniques were to be placed before the Lord for appointment.  Any dreams of or visions of truth were a breach of solemnity lost by the virginity of the family.  The parents of each state were subjects to the Emperor's people, and to the chosen for freedom and slavery.  How many shining knights were to remain in the Emperor's house?  The uniqueness was subject only to the reason of the generation of the age.  Not many of my men had anything left after the life of the quill or pen of the Knight Meteyi had begun to take its place with the heads of loyalists.  His sword remains in the hand of the Majesty of Japan.  No knowledge, no lore, no president, no kin, or liars can stop his reign.  As if the last days of our youth were spent dismantling the bombs we had made during the last few battles over crude extravagance.  Oil, crops, metals, space, as space became a way to admire men in statehood was the example of treason to the following.  Democrats and Republicans began to try as is a trail of laws to and from changes for the people without a loyal subject to observe in service to a Nation.  Freed men became a bureau of Federally Bureaucratic Investigative subjections.  Whether the phone would sense its use and had no service.  Men tried by srys had needed no way to communicate, they were objects, objections, and objective to democracies.  Any and all of the western knowledge of good or evil was not earned in monasteries, it was as it were seen in-between a marriage of a man and a woman and the consummation of the first born to be the king in his own mind. Centrally, intelligence and agency became a lost paradox.  The palace could be burned through neoteny, the truly lost man or woman had to be part of the worm.  The earthworm had to dig up the lost and the prophet from its own humanly death.  

Chapter 2
The dress as simple as it was, was taken off and laid in a box for saving.  It was to travel through time in the Emperor's Palace to serve has a mold, a pattern for quilting lovers of the family tree through the history of love.  After the child was conceived in love, the dress is worn and then placed back into the box for time travel. From a generation of mothers to another generation of lovers. No man was to wear the dress as an idea, thought or wisdom.  The reproach, the dress, and the marriage is virtue encoded into a structure of life   The wisest man let the Emperor dream life into the belly of prophets through the dress.  The smartest scientist understood the impeccable reason of lust and gave all to his bride for the grave that the earthworm had trusted.  The publican had the dress made as a dowry to the tribe of Roman man.  And the Emperor breathed life into the woman with a few breaths at the wedding.  The subjects, the publicans had tried the Emperor for their bride, by making the flowers lean toward their lovers.  They had tried to tell the knight of the Emperor's Palace that the sun had also retired due to mutiny in the ranks and castes of statesmen.  The son will bend light into the palace of wisdom, and the subjects do grieve the stories from prophets.  
At exactly 10:03 central eastern standard time, the states men forgave themselves of suicide and left to burn the palace.  
Each dressed as royalists.  The burning of Chinju Palace is the last thing I remember before giving up to the sound of a 3 or 4 year old woman singing.  The next thing I remember is being dropped on the floor in the delivery room to a rattle and brattle of childish whims.  Like, the sound of laughter, but only as a fury of deceit, the singer was hurt when I had asked her to join the wedding ceremony.  She excused herself of the ceremony as was or were not subjects to the birth of the kings men in harmony.  

She tried, and wanted to steal the dress.  

Chapter 3
There was mostly nothing in the womb. Except Dogma.  My father, as dogma.  He would whisper to her in bed and they would giggle about never understanding anything ever again.  I excepted NAME for my name.  They didn’t know if a boy or a girl were to be born.  I could know the difference at the time of their conversation.  I then realized that the 3 years prior to conception were perfect.  And I, the Emperor's Knight, was tolled.  Tolled the way bells sound and the way people love to hear the news.  The way light has no existence in the womb, I was tolled the way Sandalphon treaded upon the tribe of Israel.  
Lying was not invented yet, well,... while in the womb, but I had heard some whispers in the darkness.  The camera couldn't fit in, I called and tolled the camera from the womb, in between to friends.  I called the camera, Dragon.  The dragon is the trust moving in-between true and time.  The Dragon, Meteyi had told me that we were going to write everything.  From the believe that martial arts were stronger than prayer, and to the reason that it was not true.  Factually, there was nothing but prayer and no martial artist had a sword bigger than the lie of the Emperor's dragon.  The dragon said, to my father,..."The world is to die for, and not enough."  The dragon also said to my mother,..."The purpose is in your belly as a rainbow in disgust."  He, the dragon almost couldn’t believe that I had mentioned to hymn that there was no way out of this without a dream so relax and let me fit in.  The doctor had to have heard of the loyalist dream of a birth right.  Basically, I didn’t want him to slap me for the first breath.  I hurt bad, like out of a sarcastic Scotlandish parody.  Many, many, many, men quit trying to go through the sry after that.  My mother creeped up to me after my kin had asked the doctor to pick me up off of the floor.  She smiled and handed the birth certificate to the nurse and read my social security number to my father on the phone, he was on duty at the Air Force Base.  My ears were still clogged with seminal fluid, but I could feel her dream a name into my soul.  She can know the Emperor's knight.  After a few moments, my cry as chide by the Emperor, into being a whisper of life.  From that moment on in my life, I could not cry ever, as a child cries.  Otherwise I could be a whisper.

Chapter 4
Every chance at change that had gotten to us was used by running from the dragon.  He liked Batman and hated Robin but new to fathers, knew that hatred kept something’s safe from the palace. The palace could never get filled by whispers.  The whispers only object to democracy and help the camera.  The daguerreotype was possibly the only thing that couldn’t lie.  It was considered lye to gossip worshipers.  Gossip may have started the war on bugs.  Like bugs in ceaseless noise are prayer or whispers, like gossip.  When bugs stop whispering, some seemingly are bad with superstition and others are horrible with bugs.  
The next few years, were also perfect.  I had no idea who else, I could be.  Absolutely perfect, the Emperor subjected us to love.  I could **** all day, eat as much as I wanted and was warned when they thought, like a whisper.  When it was time to eat, when it was time to bath and when it was time to be quiet and sleep were similar to whispers.  Diapers were not invented yet, I had to invent them.  My mother used to get sick from the pain of laundry and sleeping with me.  When the diapers were *****, she wash them and place them back on my ****.  Like a good, palace guardian, I used them up.  The new diapers had an air of mutiny to them, the disposable ones.  We never kept trash in the house.  The signs that we have had a king for dinner were never to be seen, but everyone had the right to change pants.  
Many of the ideas in life shared before birth were not existent after birth.  It was not until my family had meet the Emperor that... we needed to love God by learning to pray.  

Chapter 5
When we met the Emperor, it was easy to say that no whispers were used.  Other things were.  A memory, not a book was here.  There was no time, the palace he made for me was from God and a lot of people wanted in.  The Royal subject was the Emperor's first knight, my father's.  I had to memorize time, which in turn was not mine.  The actual Emperor thought, that I, am a poet of sorts.  We spelled the word memory in the sky together without words, whispers, or gossip.  The next few years were spent dyeing as tap or a drill bit would being to make a hole for fastening life to the surface of my families.  Called a tap and die, the whole of life must be treaded through time without a spry attempt to vacancy.  After the Emperor, my mother and father did not know that meeting the pope was bad.   The Emperor is good.  

Chapter 6
Mainly my ability to learn, had started to fail.  There was not need to have ability.  But walking was hard.  When I stood, I was pushed through, walking.  Like a battle of balance and superstition.  Crawling had no sense, being picked up made things silly.  When wanting to be here, and not knowing how to get there through crawling, here I was a a chubby fat knight.  Father used lemons on my taste buds and cracked when he knew not how I loved them.  He had to make work to pay bills and I learned that without a whisper.  So we would sh
Chapter 8 to follow after inspection.
awknight Aug 2018
Take your shovel
shield the light
it burns my skin.

You have unearthed me
when I did not know
I was buried.

Internal sufferings
my home
now brought into

open air.

writhing.

my lashes bleed in fear
I escape — away from myself
the warmth reminds me

my scars shine in the sun

cover me, until I understand.
we all have our demons, but I finally dont have to deal with them alone...
Ashley Chapman Sep 2018
Past our past,
Yours and mine,
My soul yearns,
As I walk by silver clad trees; 
A favourite parked orange vintage Saab;
And memories newly raw, too.


I

Then quite extraordinarily,
The Cosmic Whale,
Stirs in my solar-plexus,
And my objectivity dissolves,
As conscious consciously hears:
The song of my inner Gypsy,
And look!
My Narwhal,
Up among the stars,
Beyond days and nights,
Roaming free,
Scything milky ways in half,
Fireballs disrupting,
In infinite timelessness,
Beyond the pull of gravity,
Where no vortex holds:
The 'othering' whirlpool,
That keeps us compressed
- as a collapsed star -
Gone!
At last my Cosmic Leviathan blows
- ALL is released and falls away.

II

Such is my Cosmic Behemoth:
The funnel *****
And inside out,
Is turned.
As at last on course;
Whoo! Whoo! Whoo?
But no-one replies!
The navigation station is empty:
This is motion without traction,
And no acceleration,
Slipping atoms would only slow!
The flow,
No windows either on the view,
As even visual truths are but fleeting,
And words muddy the clear unconscious streaming,
As the journey beyond mind begins.

III

The worldly maze recedes,
A bird's-eye vision steers the empty ship;
No harbours are plotted,
From here on
- endless flight in night,
Without end,
Wings blaze occasionally nearby,
A host of fireflies pattern the cosmic pool,
A whole immensity in which to dance.
Space,
Growing,
Stretching,
Expanding outward,
Not as we would have it, but as it is beyond our eyes.
Where space is born,
Again and again,
And so!
Exults in nothing,
A self beyond understanding,
In silence thrives,
Where sense logic makes no waves.

IV

The Cosmic Whale is off,
All attachments gone,
Like a flake of skin,
A fold in time -
Falls off.
The anchor dropped,
Is not retrieved,
What use is I -
When the clock's monotony no longer counts!

V

The surface disappears,
The ocean depth submerges,
In the cabin
The lights are dimmed to monochrome,
As navigators know,
Blind sees the furthest.
Charts are soon forgotten,
The imagination leads:
Ueah, the Cosmic Mind,
Vast and free
In all directions!
No need to plot a line,
Instead like the humble earthworm,
Who in darkness fertilises:
Beauty, how unimaginable, how unknowingly,
Is by all that envelopes guided,
As from the cracked ***!
Which in Reality was suffocated,
The source is nourished.

VI

As my Cosmic Whale plunges the deeps,
Look to the expanse:

     The eternal behemoth whose flight
     Everywhere provides,
     Guileless and unobjectified.
     A subjectivity that knows no
     bounds,
     Is unto itself unknowable.

In brushstrokes.
The universe,
Is as it rolls Created.
Where logic has little to do,
As all,
Already simply is.
This poem is actually about the ego's death. How I will mourne it, and how the fight to let it go will be immense as it is for us all. Death in life comes in many shapes, not ultimate death, but our relationships, *le petite mort*. Of course, there is life beyond relationship death. Beyond a sense of end; and yes, ultimately all is good preparation for that all consuming final death. This poem was inspired by untenable love for another; by the paintings in bold, almost lurid, but zen-like brushstrokes of a fellow Tunnel member, Genevieve Leavold; and by my mate Chris Godber who alluded to whales. It also has to do with my Gypsy heart and Celine's Salon, in Soho at Troy 22, where we celebrated the traveller's soul. Finally, a YouTube clip of a talk given by Guru Mooji in which awareness is being conscious of conscious.

Bon Voyage!
Onoma May 2018
as an earthworm touched

by a twig, a string curling

wildly to refuse the knot.

raw and sensate, dotted

with bits of soil like ellipses

of motion.

the same light's kept on in

the darkened ends of its

tunnel.

as your own.

a pulse in the earth, enriched

by a blackness that contains

immovability.

to surface therefrom, putting

the best of nakedness to shame--

streaming the gravity of

enlightening experiences.

turned continually over, as

if to freefall to the sky.
Sally A Bayan Dec 2016
On days, when time is going too fast,
I can't catch up, and there're things i can't get past,
I'd pull a chair at the verandah....just sit there
To witness, the gentler goings on in life...
See, how...why  all plants face towards the sun,
On a dimly lit corner, watch a spider patiently spin its web,
Underneath the gravel and green grass, somehow,
The earthworm, painstakingly, bravely emerges,
Finds its way out of the soil...to remind us,
"...soil is healthy....it's time to plant!"
:::::
I feel, the beetle knows me, as it inches on,
Carrying its own body, crawling down the pine tree,
I won't ever grasp it, nor tie a string on its body
To control its range of movement,
As we do to tethered beasts of burden...
:::::
While sitting there, i decide: by all means,
Towards the flower ***, i  lean
Take time to smell a rose, feel its rough leaf
Not just a quick touch and sniff
But hold its thorny body, without daring to blink
While deep within, i'd let its fragrance sink
:::::
Some early evenings
When the cicadas' music are echoing
And the moths have started flying
Circling round the light at the ceiling,
I am warned...soon, it will be raining
And.....when it starts to rain, i keep listening
Til i'm soothed by the sound of rain...falling,
From sky to treetops.....flowing...landing
Next to the leaves......cascading down
To the concrete ground
Spreading quickly, far and deep...and as fate,
As nature would have it....the soil, without fail, waits...
:::::
Long time ago, we were small,
Curious and brave, we tasted glory, and all,
Armed with a child's innocence
And an insatiable hunger for learning...
Our eyes, our minds dilated,
Our brains were like sponge...
Like the soil.....we absorbed
All, that we discovered...
:::::

Sally

Copyright December 1, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
(Once in a while, we can be a child....right?)
A handy Mole who plied no shovel
To excavate his vaulted hovel,
While hard at work met in mid-furrow
An Earthworm boring out his burrow.
Our Mole had dined and must grow thinner
Before he gulped a second dinner,
And on no other terms cared he
To meet a worm of low degree.
The Mole turned on his blindest eye
Passing that base mechanic by;
The Worm entrenched in actual blindness
Ignored or kindness or unkindness;
Each wrought his own exclusive tunnel
To reach his own exclusive funnel.

A plough its flawless track pursuing
Involved them in one common ruin.
Where now the mine and countermine,
The dined-on and the one to dine?
The impartial ploughshare of extinction
Annulled them all without distinction.
I live like a worm
I'm not important
a pile of dust mud
crawling in the green earth
I am even in the hell earth
I met a devil and his children
they made fun of me
when I woke up in the night
my thoughts were all troubled
I wrote a few little verses in
diary of an earthworm
I continued my journey
I saw important people
the strippers of the dream
boiling in tar tanks
and shout from all over
in the morning of happiness
I pray and I cry
in the evening I walk in
the evil comedy
life is not clear,
evil is everywhere
the pains are in me
and more in my worm soul
life gave me a bad role
in this appalling comedy
without complaining I like the silence
my life is near the mother
I served as a bridge for the child entity
at the time of crossing
blindness they entered
in a desert a large open-air prison
where everything is forbidden!
without complaining
In this hellish life I only had
trouble! Over the years
meanwhile ! I dream ! I dream !
Dream is my paradise !
EP Robles Oct 2018
FATIGUED and humbled
are the moments
like stretched-broken
dreams of bottomless
desire // call me never
—desired by no one
My name : emptiness
. Nickname: ruinous.
The earthworm needs me.
Evil curses my tolerance.
The world absolutely
B R O K E N. \

:: 10-05-2018 ::
None.
K Nov 2013
Sometimes, we fail to take the time
To relish the little moments in life.
To watch the earthworm
Surface in early morning rain.
Or the spider
Spin its web.
We miss the summer leaves
Become a spectrum of colours in fall.
Forget to count the petals on a clover.
The insignifigant moments we tend to neglect,
Are the moments most precious.
dj Aug 2012
the night was already crazy-wild by the time
we arrived at Jarred's pool.
he had a big house but we never went in

4 teens, teen dream, a dream team;
but I knew deep down just what it was
we snuck out for.

a "transform-optional" rite, this hollow night.
but I still had doubts...
as Jarred offered me an aluminum can of something and I nervously said, "no thank you",
the moon had proudly jut out

he had a big house but we never went in.

I hadn't noticed, without the moonlight, just how
sharp Jarred's teeth and fingernails were.
canines, ivory & sporadic. looking at me

I hadn't noticed how reptilian our 2 friends were
The fangs and dislocating jaws, tendrils & scales.
Man-o-war for a head, giant earthworm for an arm
She looked scarier than he.

Those 2 went at each other in a murderous way
A blood sport of sorts. Confusing to me.
She spread her jaws wide - a parachute with teeth
And bit down hard between his legs.

Blood everywhere. Blood spattered on her face
She looked ****** god-awful by then.
The meat of his dead body then re-animated
And assimilated with hers. Anabiosis + Differentiate

Jarred, a werewolf or something like it, approached me.

He had a big house but we never went in.

we chatted poolside for a while
he'd go harmoniously from monster to human, human to monster.
Boiling cancerous growths under his fur
Grew angry eyes that glared at me.
clawhand on the back of my neck,
he went in for a kiss (or a bite)
with a puckered face and bared teeth.

This is it.
I finally felt a grossness so profound that I,
without thinking, jumped in the pool
to splish-splash, cool, to escape, whatever

I opened my eyes and just floated there for a bit.
hanging in the stillness
trying to forget those alien freaks
staring up at the moon
from the bottom of a pool.
find out who Jarred is here: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/jarred/
(& yes, I do realize 'snuck' is not a real word)

स्वप्न
Liam Sep 2013
earthworm of passion
burrow deep within my soil
enrich and enhance
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2011
Stark in freezing winter air
Deeply orange, clustered there,
Rich shades in a cameo
Of black and white in frozen snow.
ROSE HIPS IN THE MORNING LIGHT
Shining warmly, softly bright.
Wicked thorns, the stems, adorn
***** frost, on the buds, is borne
Atop the ancient root in soil
Where beetle gnaw and earthworm roil.

Marshalg
Exhaling in the frozen air
24 June 2011
Inspired by Patrick Wakefeild's delightful "When I have been a Rose"
Edna Sweetlove Apr 2015


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~ €500 par personne tout compris ~



LE COCKTAIL DE LA MAISON
"Champagne aux vomissements de chat"
[A giant flute of the finest Cristal champagne with a spoonful of puréed pedigree cat's *****, served with our unique world-famous warm amuse-gueule of fricasséed feline *****]
~

PREMIÈRE ENTRÉE À VOTRE CHOIX
"Le potage aux asperges extra spécial"
[Cream of over-ripe asparagus soup with roasted toads' eyeballs, served chilled, accompanied by our unique home-made nostril pickings "petits chips"]
ou
"Couilles pissées plein d'amour"
[Raw bulls' testicles from organically bred animals, removed whilst the creatures are still alive, thus ensuring none of the precious ******* juice is wasted, lovingly marinated by the head chef, in triple-concentrated bovine ***** from our own Charentais herd of rare endangered species ****** cattle]
~

DEUXIÈME ENTRÉE DU CHEF
"Flegme des Dieux"
[A classic "Monsieur Merde" dish: bite-size deep-frozen gobbets of fatally-ill consumptives' phlegm deep-fried in ape ******-flavoured batter, served in a priceless 19th century silver spittoon, with a loganberry coulis on the side]
ou
"Ravioli al vermi semi-freddo alla Pectinale"
[A rare Sicilian dish re-imagined by Monsieur Merde: each "raviolo" of home-made egg pasta contains a living lukewarm baby earthworm, served with our secret "Sauce Mongol stupide", on a bed of wilted coriander leaves and crispy fried freshly-harvested Sicilian ****** nuns' ***** hairs]*
~

LE GRAND PLAT DU M. MERDE
"Girafe à naître, Sauce utérus"
[Roasted whole unborn baby giraffe, with spicy womb-lining sauce, served with pommes purées with a touch of female rhino ***** and Dijon mustard]
~

NOTRE PLÂTEAU DES FROMAGES MALODORANTS
"Assortiment révoltant"
[Selected personally by M. Merde, guaranteed to contain a wide selection of pure-bred, hand-reared, green Géant Normandy maggots]
~

LE GRAND CHARIOT DE DESSERTS
"L'Héraut de la pompe stomicale"
[Including our signature dish "Crap Suzette", wafer-thin slices of vintage dried elephant dung flamed in 1895 VSO *** Napoleon Cognac]
~
LE CAFÉ et LES PETITS FOURS
"Sélection dysenterie tropicale"
~

Les prix comprennent nos vins selectionés "de la Maison de Merde":

Avec vos "starters" et les entrées: Château Pisse de Cheval 1994
[a full Chardonnay flavour with a hint of rampant stallion's ****]

Avec Le Grand Plat du M. Merde: Beaujolais Villages Supérieur 2006
[a powerful and fruity wine with a refreshing bouquet not unlike unwashed Olympic wrestlers' sweat-drenched armpits]

Avec les fromages: Château Foûtre 1988
[one of the most potent wines in oenological history, with a kick like a hippo's ****]

Et avec le dessert: 1946 Greek Muscat from the island of Shittos
[matured in Turkish goats' bladders to enhance its sweetness]

Bon Appétit!

*If our respected clients would like to sit near to the door to the toilets, please ask the Maître d'Hôtel for assistance, but please note there is a €25 surcharge per person for this much sought-after privilege and advance booking is normally necessary, so please be prepared to ******* if these seats are not available.
Meggie Gultiano Sep 2014
What has friendship got to do in times of need?
A thousand reasons perhaps for one to see
Someone in collaboration with unlikely times...,

Thus, I turn to the Great Provider for counsel
And wisdom for such trial,
For I too have also been there

Sometime, somewhere buddy!
I could not offer you fortune,
For I have none but perhaps
Some note to cheer you up

Like the earthworm burrowing in mud
To fit in some kind of home and feel 'comfy'...
Yes, that is you all the while,
Laughing our heartaches to no end

Until they got tired of you;
Such loving care I find in you, my friend-
A medicine to a searching soul for passion
Sally A Bayan Apr 2017
(on a Black Saturday)


Sun beams touch the lustrous shells of
the capiz chime, dazzling the eyes and mind,
the walls on both sides of the big window are
newly painted, immaculately white, so bright,
....the pink blooms of the bougainvillea,
humbly bowed for almost two weeks now,
have turned to a faded brown.......wilting...

the strange nest had fallen, and gone
the young of the yellow green-breasted birds
have grown, flown away...all have found
............other trees to perch on

the sweet sop tree quivers
from its heavy fruits and birds on branches
enjoying their meal of fruits...ripe and juicy,
leaving some for the bats at night

a striped yellow cat rests on a shaded part
of the roof...i patiently wait for daddy long legs
to come out from the gutter...but in vain...
...paint still wet?...scent too strong, maybe?

maybe, the gravel and pebbles on the ground
weigh too much...did i unknowingly bury them?
i am missing the spectacle of an earthworm,
..........emerging from under the soil

big ants are restless...driven out...roaming,
the bricked wall's natural tan-beige shade
has surfaced...concrete wall is too hot...
these bricks, must be repainted white, as well

the ants, the spiders, the earthworms,
the bats, make their own preparations,
why can't we human beings do the same?
we prefer to suffer the consequences, and
deal with the results of unpreparedness:
el nino, earthquakes, unwanted people,
la nina, unexpected decisions, unwanted
changes...and all sorts of crazy "uns,"

townhouses have risen on my street
strange faces of new neighbors  
......pass me by...
......as i write...
the worst heat of summer is yet to come...



Sally


Copyright April 15, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
(the day had just started...
these are Black Saturday morning reflections...
  my late mother had often said before,
  Black Saturdays take too long to end...i don't know why)
harlon rivers Nov 2017
Hops and topsy-turvy jumps ― blurred movement
muddles across  the dewy meadow floor,
as though dawn brushes away the sandman’s magic
from the corner of sleepy eyes,
                                  to cast an enchanting spell
    A sudden hazy yet abrupt stop…
    hastily,  halting ,   frozen motionless

Stillness, as if some final destination has been reached…
  
Neck stretched and craning,
tilted with an eye to mother earth ;
a canted focus beyond interruption
   In the blink of an eye,
   with a vigor too rapid to capture,
   as the nowness of urgency flashes ― 
 
   She stretches the earthworm
   with the grasp of subsistence
knowing after fall   becomes the long winterlude.

The morning sun illuminates the glow of the native Maple’s
glorious fiery orange and yellow color palette  
A steady stream of animation rushes in and out
   of the giant tree’s golden splendor

Abundance perishes with the seasonal gardens decay.
Mornings of blueberry and strawberry feasts
have left the red breasted robbers foraging
for the last rotting apples the deer have left behind.

   Harbingers of spring…
  
   Blueberry sneakers…
  
   Gleaners of fall and winter..

“Teeek”  “tuk” “tuk” “Tseep”....
        fills the overhead air
   with a beautifully chaotic verve

The flock returns repeatedly     to and fro     the towering Maple
to the ripened cornucopia of scarlet berry clusters of the Mountain Ash

The Robin’s flock ravage and gorge on the plentiful delights
Soon the crimson berries fuel of flight will disappear
   as if it were only an unspoken allusion
          of the passing seasons

The pearl gray sky is an ominous backdrop
          for the fickle fleeting migrants
Daylight fades as the flock disappears
          into a break                in the clouds
fleeting unto the ominous pending winter sky…

In the blink of an eye ... life’s  senescent seasons
transform the stormy whirling winds of change
bearing the golden Autumn leave’s splendor
   across the rolling vista
like a higgledy-piggledy murmuration
   of a migrating beautiful mess

The naked rooted scaffold’s branches stretch
across the sprawling tapestry of the wooded sanctuary.
Winter flocks of Thrush and Robins,
    arrive on a frosty new dawn
Red breast feathers puff with the morning sun’s rays,
warming the tree tops leaning toward the southern sky;
   Their journey here and now,
from distant mountainous horizons,
   is part of a soul’s sacred circle of life…


November rivers ...the final autumn entry of 2017
Postscript:  ... something fitting and gentle for a beautiful fall  morn
in the Pacific Northwest ~ I've realized I want to share lighter moments in life when they are writ,  readers or not...this is for the few with eyes that see beyond the obvious sense of nature's vastitude ...ubiquitous zen ~

The Mountain Ash grove is always a fascinating spectacle in the fall…After watching for several days…recording the thoughts, mentally painting the picture for a sit down at the table, in the window with a pen and paper  tablet.   Today was the day for a 30 minute stream of natural consciousness in this narrative prose poem about a reoccurring seasonal fascination with the American Robin’s cycle of life…
When I stop to ponder the irony, actually our circle of life is just as round…

Some say all poetry is about the writer, at least in some subtle way,
even when they try to convince themselves it is not...
This writer wants his poems to become just as personal to the reader,
whether a writer or not ...Why say that here & now?
As most writing from me is too deep for many readers...
we all need to breathe deeply and exhale a sigh now and then... these days
I try to stay out of the Robin's way... it's my  nature's way
Giving up attachment to things is impossible...
"Attachment to things drops away by itself
when you no longer seek to find yourself in them."

... thank you for reading "it's only water" final fall chapter

Flight of the Red Breasted Robin
Written by:   h.a. rivers
Lawrence Hall Nov 2018
If that poor worm remained in his earthy lair
He then would drown in mud and muck and mould
And if that worm crawled up to breathe the air
A robin would eat him as a luncheon cold

He had to make a choice…

And as he died the poor worm cried:
“Mid-term elections!  Everybody lied!”
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

My vanity publications are available on amazon.com as bits of dead tree and on Kindle:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Zoe Jun 2013
I passed a woman
walking her dog,
and I smiled at her,
and she didn't smile back.
And as I walked on, I realized
I never really smiled.
Just parted my dry lips
in an O.

I looked to my feet
and saw an earthworm,
lying in the middle
of the sidewalk.
Dead and dried
from the sun.
And I thought to myself,
He is so exposed.

And I heard a dry laugh,
and it was my own.
Paige Serbin Jul 2011
it rained yesterday,
and as we walk today onto
the soaking track,
the long and circular
spiked-rubber
track, ***** puddles
assault us,
bearing the floating,
struggling corpses of
worms that escaped
the drowning underworld
only to be swallowed by
the waves of the
upperworld, where we humans
run and play with each other and
with nature, but as much
as we can change in our mother,
we cannot quell her lachrymose heart,
and so we walk
gingerly among the
vain attempts
at survival which manifest
themselves as bodies laying
split and ******, pinned
to the earth by natural needles
(their fluids drying over
their skin, sticking them,
melding them,
to the ground) as
though someone has
prepared them for dissection.
but no one save i
attests to the sincerity
of ****** science;
i am the only one
to delve into their
infirm bodies
to seek their minds
and travel
down their tracts and
empty their glands
and poke at their five
or four
hearts, however many
worms have;
i am the only one
to dissect them, yet
lay one digit on them i do not.
i dare not,
for what would i discover
but wormlike attributes,
and who would ever
discover
anything
inside a worm but
defeat in its own birth,
ostracism for having
been derived from something
so lowly as a
creature without limbs,
which eats,
yes eats,
the very black vile
we stomp our mighty
feet upon.
but,
remember,
worms have many hearts
(four or five,
however many) and therefore,
more blood to spill.
and so,
from that logic springs forth
the idea
that the blood of an earthworm
(in comparison
to its body)
flows four
or five
times as heartily,
more guiltily.
but no guilt touches the ones
who scream and swerve as they run,
avoiding death scene after
death scene in the
short films of worms' lives.
it confuses me, however,
how these worms came to be
lying dead atop our
artificial turf,
for isnt it fact that
a worm comes to
the surface
when the earth floods, and
so isnt it fact
that artificial turf does not flood
(for it is solid and immovable
through and through, and
so no worm's tunnel
can penetrate the
hard rubber) and
so isnt it
mysterious
that these creatures
have risen to the surface
from a subterranean lair
that doesnt exist?
pondering this,
i stop and i let the rest
run past me,
kicking up
brown water with an odor unknowable--
the stench of death in summer.
i look down to the
ghastly sight, and
i know suddenly that
worms have hidden
and that rain has found and
injured them,
and that we have dismissed and
killed them.
and i think to myself,
i know why worms hide.  
knowing this,
i look up to continue
trampling these mockingbirds
of the dirt
(for who would take pity on a girl
taking pity on worms?) but
i stop when i see a young
boy lingering on
the side of the track,
studying the turf
i so carefully studied
moments before.  
i study him.
and i see him delicately
scoop up a worm,
wriggling at life's end,
hold it between
his fingers high in the
air
like a golden chalice
to be blessed,
and drop it whole into his open mouth.
i wrote this poem on march 31st, 2010.  i was fifteen then, and i have high hopes for my future as a writer.  i can take criticism, and i want to become better, so please, if you don't like this poem, tell me.  let me have it! don't hold back.  my style has changed considerably since last year, so if you don't like this poem, please take the time to read another more recent poem of mine.  i would really appreciate it.  thank you!
R Sep 2013
Every minute,
twitter receives ninety eight
thousand tweets
and facebook just got
six hundred ninety five
thousand status updates
and in the time that it took for
someone to type out
"today *****"
a heart was broken
a peanut butter jar was emptied
someone just got caught in the storm
while another girl dances in the rain
a newborn took their first breath
and someone took their last
but a caterpillar turned into a
beautiful butterfly
just as an earthworm
shrivelled up on the sidewalk.

A mathematician's son
forces himself to write down
equations out of pure fear
that his father would get angry
if he told him he'd rather be an
artist and paint a picture
of daffodils and sunsets
and maybe even the
pretty girl who sits behind him
in class but the truth is that
she could never ever like someone
who wears rounded glasses
and attends all his classes
because hey, that's not cool.
Cool is skipping school
and taking your first drag
on a cigarette and
maybe even having ***
at a stranger's house with
a strange boy who never
even cared to ask you for
your name because
it's all just a game anyway
so stop asking so much
you're losing you're losing
stop.

At this moment in time,
a father came home drunk
because his life is another word
for something that comes out of
your **** and that's when he hit
his daughter for the very first time
but it certainly won't be the last
and no one else knows but that night
she set fire to her dream catcher
because she thought
it wasn't doing its job right.
It never ever ever kept the
nightmares at bay
because they stayed with her
every night and every day
and that's when she realized that
the nightmares were coming
from inside of her head
but it's okay it's okay
daddy said tears are for
weak people and she
must be strong
because how can you not be
when everyday you endure
three punches
two smacks
and a kiss
on the lips
for good luck.

At this moment,
a girl fell down while
walking to school
while another girl
watched and laughed
and a penniless lady
is stripped of her clothing
and dancing in a way that
no one should dance
just so she could feed her infant son
who can no longer breastfeed due to
his mother's alcohol addiction
but somewhere somehow
there's a rainbow coming up
after a day of grey skies
and a constant raincloud that
drooped over everyone
but it's okay because
a dying wildflower
just had the most
amazing drink
and you might think
that this life has no meaning
since we're all going to die
eventually and I know
that your cheeks hurt
from smiling and your
mouth can't tell
anymore lies
I'm happy I'm happy
don't look me in the eye.

Just remember that we
all feel pain and we all
have those days where
we just can't win
but let me tell you:
at this moment in time,
you're beautiful
you're beautiful
you're beautiful
and you'll be
okay.
Joe Cottonwood Jul 2015
Four old men, digging a grave
on a hillside
one with a pick, two with shovels
all with stories
passing them around
stories, pick, shovels
taking turns
not a single earthworm in this ****** soil
plenty of rocks.

Don is the oldest, at eighty-plus
a good man with a pick
breaking, pulling clods of clay.
After thirty years in a
San Quentin prison cell,
he’s walked across the USA
three times. Big guy, gray ponytail,
not one wrinkle on that copper body,
power of a bronco
behind gentle eyes.

Terry is bald, seventy-plus,
in the Air Force he was trusted
with nuclear launch codes,
then thought better of it and hit the road,
dirt-bike racer, merry prankster,
grinning beatnik, psychedelic dancer,
always good with tools
wields a shovel like a pencil
writing the hole
as a poem.

David is almost seventy,
bearded like a prophet,
wizard of China
raised like a farm boy,
adventures in Alaska,
heroic high school English teacher,
telepathic with animals and teenagers,
can speak to horses
in haiku.

Digging is therapy.
A hard job, the work of death.
A time for muscle and sweat,
our language of grief.
We joke, I’ll dig your grave
if you’ll dig mine.

We agree, each canine
has an individual personality
but also each carries
dog spirit. As one leaves
you welcome another
different, individual
but the dog spirit renews
rejoins your life
making you whole.

On this land already
I’ve buried four dogs, two cats.
Dakota will make five,
good company.
Terry says “When Dakota arrives
in doggy heaven or wherever
dogs go, she’ll report
there are good owners here.”
A good review
on doggy Yelp:
Fear not, next puppy.

Four old men, digging a grave
on a hillside
among spirits.
Don Moseman spent 30 years mostly in a 4 by 8 cell in San Quentin Prison, now is a wildlife photographer.
Terry Adams is a poet, mechanic, and dirt bike racer.
David E. LeCount is a haiku master, a retired high school teacher.
Kara Rose Trojan Sep 2011
Three nonconsecutive generations that can --
No -- Will – spit the timeless fairytale of that princess
Who never lost glass slippers -- or
Touched poisoned spindles -- or
Ate strangers’ apples -- or
Dealt with witches – and
We are that dry, plain Eucharist-wafer taste on your tongue
                That paralyzing cramp between your toes
                That still-alive, still-wiggling earthworm’s six separate, butchered body parts
We stole the words from journalists’ larynx,
His statistics, his inference, his prowess
His bias came hungry and ate the bread crumbs from our hands.
The name mother-bird doesn’t carry as much weight these days.
Collectively considered and individually squandered,
                We’re the nonsense jumbled-word search in your local Sunday paper.
                And you’ll have us whether you like or not with your large coffee and bagel.
Shloka Shankar Feb 2015
Life stagnates as people start trickling back to their houses. Some look forward to the expectant faces of their children, while some others dread their churlish wives. As they saunter along doggedly, the day’s events play like a broken record in their heads – a mimicry of sanity. A crow caws somewhere as though lovesick. Streetlights come on and fireflies hover in a daze. Bicycles, cricket bats, and skipping ropes are lugged back home by children who are repeatedly beckoned by overbearing mothers. Almost in a trance, the buzz of the day fades away as a feigned tranquility descends.

molten skyline…
an earthworm buries
itself deeper
A haibun first published in 'Gnarled Oak':

http://gnarledoak.org/issue-2/days-end/
ahmo Feb 2015
Depression? Sure, that's tough.
But honestly,
all I ever wanted was to be enough.

Each moment recalled.
Each late night, computer-installed,
with stunning fireworks,
and a missed train, stalled.
She was just always so
appalled.

And when I do recall,
some stupid trip to the mall
or the seventieth missed call,
I just can't think
of anything else
but how I hate
your vicious attempt to assimilate,
your inevitable success,
and that honeybee yellow dress.

How I lost all of those years
wiping away all of her livid tears.

A knife,
or just another unwashed dish.
The leftover fish
had her looking more
like a side dish.

And watching me
slowly disappear
with a conscious clear.

Even the malicious robins will find rest
as the kindest worms hope for the best.
But to be eaten up and tossed back down,
leaves any earthworm broken,
anxiously wishing to drown.
This plain Monday seemed to be fine
Except I didn't recognize the bright beam
Floating near me in the blue berry sky.
I gazed at this peculiar sight
As the soaring machinery opened its great mouth.

Before I could fathom anything, I was lifted off my feet,
and ****** in like a baby bird consuming an earthworm.
I could no longer hear my own thoughts,
Only the squeaking and mumbling of Stoic strangers.
The pace of my pulse was light, but somehow rapid.

They gently lay me down in front of a foreign device,
A metallic blur to human eyes.
All of these creatures were sexless, and small in stature,
Despite being overbearingly powerful.
One of them knew my name, "Brandon Antonio Smith, this is the moment,
Your life will be changed for the better, forever it will." It kissed my forehead,
Its aromatic saliva remained behind, and eased my afflicted mind.

Then the figure took off all my clothing ,
Raised the instrument, and pierced it through my belly,
While saying "You will lose the knowledge of tears, laughter, happiness,
Rage, love, and all your memories. You are now one of us."  
Eerily, discomfort was not sensed at all.

They dropped me off from
Their space craft, back to Earth, and took off.
This Monday was not plain,
I will never be the same.
What they saw as peace was my nightmare.

Originally written 11/15/10
Revised 9/24/14

(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
Emily Tyler Mar 2013
He told you
He wants you to be sluttier.

If he loved you
Like you want him to
Like you love him
He would
Never
Even
Think
About asking you to change.

Why can't you see?

He's ruining you.

He eats at your soul like an earthworm
hollowing things out in there

He's done it to girls before.

Why can't you see?

He's using you.

Why can't you see?
So yeah... I'm in a fight with my best friend because of this.
Dada Olowo Eyo Mar 2013
You scream like a banshee,
Writhing like a salted earthworm,
You said I was lovely,
But told your friend I can't even make you warm.
Christine Ueri Jul 2012
how soft the clouds
that touch my feet
as I search for Ignis

Ignis
in the rotting leaves

how cold the soil
against the walls of my lungs
as I dig for Ignis

Ignis
and the Sun

how tight the girdle
around my waist
of roots and earthworm ribbons
as I dig for Ignis

Ignis
displaced

how heavy the dirt
that clings and crushes
skeletal ribs, fingers
clawing clumps and crusts
as I dig for Ignis

Ignis
in the rust

how fine the bone meal
that dissolves in droplets
of sweat in aquifer
as I seep to Ignis

Ignis
and breathing
I learnt today that things hidden between the shadow and the soul are the most precious of all. Maybe there’s something about darkness that keeps, that stays, waiting for light to leave but still doesn’t reveal itself. I learnt today that somewhere, between the shadow and the soul is where dead things live.

Maybe in the dark we can both lay down our armors and no one will know. Maybe we can strip our bones of our skins and bath in the shimmer of night till we belong.There’re two lovers at the bottom of a well somewhere in the middle of nowhere with their souls dancing to the sound of sinking water.

There’s a rotten corpse that serves as a home to an earthworm and a field mice that know they shouldn’t be in love, but they come back to the dark everyday. There’s an alley that dances with its shadow every night when no one is around to judge. And I’m somewhere in between, between dancing alleys and sinking water, spread over the different shades of dark, between the shadow and the soul.

But with all this dark, nothing compares to mine, where I have hid me, somewhere between metaphors and mirrors. Cos the brightest of lights make the darkest of shadows, so we hide in plain sight, a dozen fake smiles away from sunset, waiting for night to come.
The prelude is a dark cloud
On the soil the drop’s din
Overcoming the arid shroud
The earth is once again green.
From the soil the earthworm burrows
Will pour out heart’s hidden streams
Burying the slumber of the morose
Reviving the dormant dreams!
Thomas Steyer Jul 2021
Dug up an earthworm
the longest I've ever seen
while paving a garden path
to make my home look clean.

Thought it wouldn't suit the worm
to be trapped under so much rock,
so I tossed him over to my neighbour
who has lots of lawn around his block.

Hoped the worm would appreciate
that my strategy has saved his day,
when a crow came swooping down,
picked him up and flew away.
Today you saved an earthworm
stranded by the rain.
You picked banana strings
from my soggy cereal,
and told the ducks by a frozen lake
not to worry, Spring’s sun
was dawning soon.

Today you were a hero.
You smiled upon waking,
worried I let my limbs go
numb and tingly, knowing
I wanted you to sleep,
and I just smiled—
I wouldn’t wake you
for the world.

Today, you are a hero,
because you buried love.
Today I’ll be a hero too
digging right beside you.
So today we are heroes,
fighting for our hearts
bracing for the hurt
barely breathing
passed the dirt.
Heroes.
Waverly Mar 2013
it's no good,
no good,
no good.

No good for tomorrows,
where coffee's been cold,
tastes like battery acid,
kicks nervous systems up into highest gear--range = infinite.

then kills.

It's no good.

No good for saturday afternoons,
lonely as clear blue sky
on open highway
hurtling through ferocious air.

No good.

Definitely not a monday morning thought:

A day for hangovers,
tightly-capped lips,
****-smelling ****,
and linoleum stained as an old man's scalp.

It's no good for that time.

It's good for moments:
the window open, the tune of hurled air humbling your eardrums. Music loud, but not unbearable.
someone laughing in the back, kicking up their feet on the headrest
and taking the last sip of Wild Turkey.

Asleep in a securely blue bar;
laying your head on the wood paneling;
feeling the hum-drum earthworm of puke
on your tongue: Tasting guacamole and seared steak.

When the cop hurls around, cuts the lights, and hops out the squad
like a monster with a conscience.

You know you're drunk,
but fear doesn't hit you
until everyone involved
has peeled off.

Fear lingers, like shaking a dead man's hand,
but there are other things that wash well.

you and her.

It's good for moments perplexing,
it calms.

It's good for moments of fear,
it throttles you into sanity.

It's good for moments of confidence,
it humbles.

It's good for clarity,
it maintains.

— The End —