"eels" poems
Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark, as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.
Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.
12.9k
Royalty
She dwells in the sea- green palace of her father
The mermaid swam alone on blustery days
The seed of the water god Neptune and a river nymph
Her beauty blind the sun and his morning rays
On days of boredom
She swam with the white dolphins
Riding high on heaving rolling waves
Other times with Omura's whales dive deep
Or play in a red coral reef bay
Tickling blue ***** that walked on the sandy bottom
Exploring the dark octopus caves
Floating often with the deadly jellyfish
Keeping her scaled tail very still
Or wiggling through the raging currents of the ocean
With the graceful ribbon eels
The day passed passed
She became weary
Came time to rest her head
Returned to the flowing green kelp palace
And did sleep on a starfish bed
All Rights Reserved @Tammy M Darby August 2013.
All Material Stored in Author Base
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 6:43 PM UTC
We sit on the beach and smoke,
Secrets drizzling down our throats,
Drilling for oil on the ocean floor
Where the neon jellies live.
The words get caught up in our throats,
We slither like eels in the coral reef
Where the neon jellies live,
And mate by swimming in paint.
We slither like eels in the coral reef
And ignore how wet we are,
As we mate by swimming in paint,
Greens and blues melting together.
We never care how wet we are
Or how much sea we swallow,
Our bellies swell like open eyes,
Bursting and spraying our faces
Where we can't help but swallow
What we spit at our faces,
From the oil we drilled from the ocean floor
Where the neon jellies live
And die while washed up on the shore.
Aug 31, 2010
Aug 31, 2010 at 8:13 AM UTC
Lone leatherback cruises up from the deep, pausing on the fragile reef
to feast ancient eyes upon the show, a bright parade laid out below
butterfly couples paired for life, graceful angels in black and white stripe
brilliant clowns and their toxic lovers, a plodding gang of giant groupers
puffers bob like comic balloons, humble gobies on every menu
beaked parrotfish grinding the coral down, in the ears a constant sound
cowfish blowing puckered kisses, sea stars catching fishy wishes
white-tipped, hammerhead, tiger sharks, triggerfish mean bite worse than their bark
untamed unicorns too wild to ride, dogfish snapping, biting alongside
coral trout color-shifting fools, attracting ladies in dull-hued schools
**** headed wrasse rumbling through, thick lips mumbling go get a room
sea horses nod in labyrinth caves, razor-toothed eels lying in wait
if tentacled embrace should be your fate, nudibranchs will light the way
to a place of bliss, none of this can exist, without the builders
coral and algae bewildered, the ways of man egotistical
rising ocean temperatures, carbon emissions, and el Niño
victim of abundant greed, say goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef
so massive is this magical place, one can see it from outer space
astronauts witness its demise, ninety-percent barren, bleached bone white.
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 1:58 PM UTC
Tears that seem so plain
never enough without a reason
Always on the back of my mind,
thoughts loose like blood dripping
Can't you see I bear crystals
from picking thorns off a rose?
Every night I dive into the ocean
swimming freely with electric eels
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 7:18 AM UTC
they danced in a dream
of bending shadows
face down
begging ***
all hungry back door paradise
ankles strapped on a foot worn floor
paint faced in whorey nights
with pin needle eyes
beded
blood crimson neon's
cut curtains
like kissing claws
so their bodies wouldn't forget
dark pleasures lightening
and biting tantra tantrums
they swallowed mad ***** blossoms of hell candy
breathing the others inhalations
foot sniffing ballet arch
in fastened Japanese melting red slippers
gazing upwards rectums prayer
solar eyed insurrection
finger by finger
clutching wrists like the grave
for bloods salty cove
an injured landscape
a dire pink desert
like bogs hold bones
a rave for a slave
covered in yellow ocher rubber sheets
soft on the feet
x rated amputee costume
made of blood and spit
look mommy no arms
a bellied tattoo
of hennaed homunculi
burning Candomblé Jejé, skull
black eyed beauty hissing
while accordion throated
rip tie tighten
another notch please
a dizzy *******
down silver fluted gullet
in a steamed up bath house
party of blotted sockets
*** kitten
kissed dead girls thighs
tremulous and stretched
a shimmering serum
like wide tubular channels
as pontoon edges slit
through midnight howls for velvet skinned girl
who thrills
her head a veiled Jehovah
saliva wagging tongue ****
a stuttering ****** dance
a hula hot momma in rubble
slapping hot lipped kisses
over starved darkness
along telegraphs avenue
melting eyes like butter
a globed pudding spill
******* drool drops of gold
and black river gladiators
slaughter lies
with every long stroke
between cascading squeals
paraphilias mausoleum
like tumbling eels
a scapegoat pulp fiction
chiseled in cement
******* rips
drip drip drip
babbling **** bubbles
**** spasms ooze like a hot glue gun
fire spats soil cherry clover
Jan 12, 2019
Jan 12, 2019 at 3:39 PM UTC
Strange question indeed,
So I asked one and all;
Explain to me:
“What's a plumber's ball?”
Family and friends
Heeded my call,
But none could confine,
Refine or define it,
Yet Paul was sure
He could design it.
Still, none could satisfy
My caterwaul:
“What the hell is a plumber's ball?”
Does it sweat the pipe
Or wiggle the snake:
Can it clamp the ******
For Heaven's sake?
Could it snap on the cock-hole cover?
All these queries
Made me wonder.
Has it something to do
With hardness leakage,
Or ******** the ball-cock
To stop a seepage?
Has it anything to do
With a saddle valve dripping,
Electric eels,
Or two pipes mating?
And, I heard of male and female fittings,
And should I worry
If I'm standing or sitting?
If you're discharging the head
Or elongating the pipe,
Does the plumber's ball
Help it snug tight?
Is it in my tank,
Or in my bowl,
Beneath the floor
Near the drainage hole?
Is the plumber's ball
In the back of the truck
(Jeff laughed and said
One could rub it for luck).
I asked Michel
If he could tell,
He sensed it was something
He could smell.
I sought out Ray,
Perhaps he'd know,
But he was on call
To restrain a back-flow.
I couldn't ask Gary
For his wisdom and sense,
He was wigglin' the snake
To unclog a wet vent.
Henry, Rick, Scotty and Brian,
Gave shameless answers
I couldn't rely on.
It's not a crapper, tail piece
Or Johnnie-bolt,
Or catch basin, reamer,
O-ring or pipe dope.
So I searched the Net
With a fool's wonder,
And read of ball-checks,
Gas ***** and plungers.
I know it's too late
To ask Rolly or Ross,
For both of them knew,
And that's our loss.
And Ernie's gone golfing
So I can't ask the Boss.
With final resolve
I fell to my knees,
To pray St. Ferrer
With grace intercede.
His silence left me
In a state of depression;
Had Ferrer washed his hands
Of the plumbing profession?
So nothing could settle
My wherewithal,
I still didn't know,
What's a plumber's ball?
Suddenly, it hit me,
He's never wrong,
The Dalai Lama of dip-tubes,
I'll ask John.
Where others did falter,
John's a rock:
He knows the difference
Between a gas and ball ****
With a knowing smile
He embraced our Hall:
Here, good friend, is your Plumbers' Ball.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 9:10 AM UTC
Health department signs litter the grass areas,
"Do not make contact with the water;
Swimming forbidden".
Less than twenty years ago I learnt to swim here
And fish too, once i even drowned!
Sometimes my friends and I would
Catch Eels then sell them
To the local Chinese restaurant.
I treasure those memories of my childhood.
This fresh water lake surrounded
By trees taller than buildings
My beautiful haven from the city, hidden
Between main roads and highways
that only the locals know.
Sitting on sandstone rocks
I see my reflection amongst the lily pads.
Beyond the depths an entanglement of
Roots, seaweed and *******
Natural mandalas made by tadpoles
Ripple across the murky brown surface
Whilst a rather large water dragon
Sun bakes on the riverbank
And ducks glide by reminding me
Of the canoes we used to capsize
And I appreciate how simple life
Used to be.
ELEETE J MUIR
May 11, 2018
May 11, 2018 at 7:56 AM UTC
Sometimes
I feel a well
dug deep
into my heart
I try to stop it
but it quickly
becomes ocean
and overflows
into great tsunami
rises over all the levees
rushes past dams
breaks down tall
city structures,
edifices crumbling
in its path
all the squid and octopi
skitting forth
in wild pulses,
tentacles entangled
in doorways and rooves
slipping through narrow
window-openings
as they pour ink
in clouds,
shifting shapes
in cephalopod excitement
while blue whales
and humpbacks
breach over bridges,
phosphorescent jellies
light up
the dark streets of
my arteries
electric eels illuminate
the alleyways of
desolation's thick syrup
and I cannot stop it even
if I wanted to,
these darkened,
swirling waves
I am both floating and flying
like a jumping manta ray
curling around the ferries
bobbing in seahorse iridescence
weaving between buses
as if they were corals
And when the storm subsides,
colorful rockpools form,
rich in diversity
It is there,
in between the
multicolored ***** and
succulent shellfish,
in a mermaid's
voluptuous smile
and turquoise eye
that I see you,
so crystal clear
I could reach out
and bring you to me,
holding you tight
until the
gentle break
of
morning
Sep 3, 2017
Sep 3, 2017 at 5:31 PM UTC
There was a Truth
in murk-settled water.
I'll sit at the surface
and remember past wrongs.
Stirred lake was below us,
the eels and a catfish,
but towered above
the sun shone down warm.
A dead masquerade,
you kicked for the surface.
Your body, it rippled
a silhouetted sky.
Dead hum underwater
our eyelids were liquid.
My jellyfish back
absorbed the tanned rays.
Ingest your diffraction,
a hunger astray.
A dry-land discov'ry:
it was my legs aflame.
The murk was in you.
The murk was in you.
Dear God, I was clean.
Dear God, I was clean.
A seat at the table
to pray for the lake.
But what does it matter?
Wash my hands to eat.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 11:46 AM UTC
Distasted disaster dooms
Truehoods falsely spoken
Falsehood & true galoshes
Numbrella mousetrap
****** void twice
And More And Morel eels
Mar 24, 2010
Mar 24, 2010 at 11:14 PM UTC
Sharks swim in circles round stoic sunfish
Ancient eels hide, watch out- they bite
Sea turtles hover near the glass
Wide eyes in the audience
At what to them is mysterious.
Both feel wonder, a sense of danger
Unpredictable natures, could they relate to each other?
Peered in a little longer, leaned in a little closer
Saw in the reflection
Fish out of water.
Separated by land and sea- no matter
The lowest fish in the water
Sees what life has to offer.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 10:37 PM UTC
On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.
The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In Cassidy's haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight
To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.
As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.
And I thought of the wasps' nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.
The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.
I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,
The best job at the mill
With plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.
Maybe Mary might call round...
And then I came to the haggard gate,
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.
3.1k
It's an animal beastly thing wrapped up warm in stigmas headlines daydreams sleepdreams ice cream headspin. pain.
Sirens call in my upper chest or my abdomen, maybe. a ****** sea. fish of mens' hooks eels and seaweed wound around aorta blood pumping mind squeezing toes cracking new blister dried fluid. cracks and flakes a flushing cycle, not over the **** yet.
salty eyes heavy chest silver parcels unending quest not shiny particles. Head spin crack of dawn hey look the moon is gone. observed the craters they were my neighbours a hole in my heart like the one......
Don't play mean i try and try green bean carrot pencil brush pen, still here? Run! too hard. Curdling scream turns sour on my tastebuds my tongue has been dissatisfied. Add it to the list! lately I know these things should not have been acknowledged. Bed. No. Kitchen work? Yes. Hurts me through and through and I know it's because it is me and it cannot be handled but it settled in the pit of my stomach and it made itself a happy home. I HATE IT.
BLOOD:
*juice
gore
cruor
claret
hemoglobin
sanguine fluid
clot
plasma
vital fluid*
why would I ever use blood?
Porous salt bruises help mind chooses slugs and moths but i want insects like ladybird bees. Keep me weak and feed me lies because not once did you see me you only looked right past me. how does it feel, little peach, to be dishing out bowls of dinky lies. i ate it you were trusted you were good there's just so many people coming.
when the moon rises and the sky twinkles lights about you its easy to be sad but its time for you to blossom
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 8:17 AM UTC
I fell in love with you
More accurately
I fell in love with the feelings you transferred into me
But those mutinous emotions betrayed me
The moment you did
The withdrawal from your love was too intense
I desperately needed something to replace those feelings
I always said I could run from anything
as long as it didn't involve running
But after walking with you for so long
It's hard to change my pace
The path too tough to face
Your memories fueled the chase
Until I found my escape
The kneading needles turned me fetal
Shocked my veins like eels
Fetuses aren't the most ambulatory
The race became a marathon story
Your effervescent ghost pursued me
Breaking the sound barrier to reach me
I floated vacantly in the stew of your noise
The needles touched me
The way you wouldn't
The needles bled me
The way you would
Then the race ended as abruptly as it started
Only to begin another race
...But things were different this time
Slugs waved as they passed a sprinter
Tormented by a lane filled with needles
The hostile crowd watched with pity
As a once great athlete
Was forced to acknowledge his janitorial duties
The fickle mob cheered with triumph
Upon his valiant return
He was quicker than ever before
And the masses exalted him
He ran faster than everybody
And waited for nobody
Anxious they might reveal his secret
That his speed was derived from his feather weight
After the needles hollowed out his insides
Jun 1, 2017
Jun 1, 2017 at 2:30 PM UTC
God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.
God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.
The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels--
the tablet of the world--
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.
He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.
2.5k
I need the beach
sand in the places
where
it's hard to reach
the sea
clotted cream and
strawberry jam for tea
You
at my side when
the tide comes in
bingo and
sin, oh!
the devil
says no
so
sand eels
fishing reels
catch of the day.
B and B
you and me
double room
ideally.
Jun 1, 2017
Jun 1, 2017 at 4:11 PM UTC
i thought you were a painting at first,
with the way those dyed eyes matched mine,
with lips as full as a novel and as red as lower worlds,
made me think you were a painting--of something most divine.
i thought you were a painting at first,
with the way those small hands rose as mine did,
with the way those lips tasted of cookie dough and warm sugar,
with the way those eyes never seemed to leave me for naught,
and abandon me in lakes.
i thought you were a painting at first,
when i approached and eels ignited my mind--
with the thought--the picture-- the painting of you, O dear,
and set my mind within seas--clouds--of gladiolus's.
i thought you were a painting at first,
with that ever-always smile,
for do you not bleed at the mouth,
with that kryptonic sunshine?
i thought you were a painting at first, my love,
when my hand touched your sadistic smirk,
knowing i couldn't truly reach you,
and the heathers over-lapse me.
i thought you were a painting at first,
when my cheek touched your cool one,
and stained it with cherry pop blush,
for i know it's your favorite,
as you wear it to bed, all-while.
i thought you were a painting at first,
when i froze and my mind sung eulogies,
at my death at your satin feet,
for your beauty reaches past heaven.
i thought you were a painting at first,
when my smile synced with yours,
when they poked our eyes,
when they wrinkled our noses,
and when the sun shone still--even though ours were enough.
i thought you were painting at first,
until our lips met 'neath blue light,
and the shivers i bled,
fueled our world a-night.
for, dear, i thought you were a painting at first,
when i could see my heart beat--pace as yours,
and the moon and sun morphed--into entity,
and made us water lilies birthed with ravens.
i thought you were a painting at first,
when God told me,
'for you are the most beautiful person i have birthed from my lungs,
and spoke my heart to,
for you--and your painting here--are the only things that dance to my world.'
i thought you were a painting at first, my love,
when i bleed into pots and saw you doing the same,
now i know when my time is scuffed 'neath the barren sand,
your blood--our resin--stains lots.
lots.
lots.
for i know you're a stunning painting, O love,
for you lock many hearts.
i'd hope to own thrice of many,
so you could master theft over, and over, and over again.
i know you're a wondrous painting, O dear,
when people beg you to pose,
so they could see that beauty too, O love,
and kiss it a wish.
i know you're a masterpiece, love--
sweeter than melted butter,
and the finest of berries,
for you're worth--worshiped--much more than,
such mundane things.
i know you're a vintage classic, O wonder,
when my eyes turn blinding stars,
and fill up night skies.
for i knew you were a--
masterpiece...
master... piece...
master... piece...
master.
for i knew you were a human, O master,
when my eyes gloss over in drunken clarity,
and my lips spill cider;
my hand becomes water at your touch,
for the pool knows no words,
to bask in my beauty.
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 21, 2016 at 6:08 PM UTC
Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower, if you like woman with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.
Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.
But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opening suture.
At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.
Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration,
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her explosive, acrid indigestion.
No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And in several places, impaling her scaly flesh a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.
The last of the kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast
She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as she in unexpected agony died: “I thought, I truly thought, I was god!”
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 2:06 PM UTC
I sip my beer, the relief of foam
the last remnant of civilisation
like a porcupine shawl
alcohol is the spine slice
beneath the skin
welcoming me in.
Electric lights shining bright
eels wriggling in a pool of light
like Frankenstein reborn
the monster within
the feathers of a passing dove give flight.
Sometimes I feel like grilled asparagus
the breathlessness of sentiments
wrapped in tin foil
the coil of perfection at gas mark 7.
Sitting in my bathtub and a 3 piece suit
electric toaster bubble and squeak
and fidgety machete at the ready
the voice in my head says, 'hey man, steady!'
the institute transmutes its underplay
I opt to not execute on this occasion
instead soak up the libation of liberation.
Safe in the knowledge;
tomorrow is another day.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 7:16 PM UTC
I can hear the sea bed,
I sometimes think I can hear whales and eels,
And pain escaping my body,
I feel so much all the time,
I sometimes think you feel very little and watching you succeed makes me feel worse and isn't that awful?
Eels are covered with a slimy mucus that allows them to slither around without getting scratched,
I keep dropping myself into water,
For a second of relief,
Healing isn't linear,
And did you know eels can swim backwards and forwards.
Nov 27, 2021
Nov 27, 2021 at 4:38 AM UTC
I was waiting for a simple message from you that
we both know was never to come. I sat impatiently
atop the cities tallest building and watched the coming
storm. I witnessed the water beat the feeble earth
into submission and it looked alright to me. But then
the raging sinless sea swallowed the shore. The end
of our hometown (est. 1919) took about a minute
and a half. A man leapt out of his chair and said it
was amazing as the punishing, purifying wave tore
into his home of 20 years. The coin laundromats and
malls became the shallows and downtown by the Top 40
radio station became the deep. Clown fish swam amongst
the stop lights, trash cans and satellite dishes. And a
coral reef began to grow deeply into the brick of the tasty
Greek restaurant at the corner of MLK and Main. Eels and
rays swam up the sidewalks and hammerheads patroled
the submerged skyscrapers. Admittedly, a lot of the
busy people who didn’t take the time to look out their
smudged windows and watch the water devour the flood
walls and seafront property didn’t make it out of their
homes and cars and schools and businesses. And those
people that didn’t make it to the outskirts of the metro in
time were quickly drowned and integrated breathlessly into
the oceanic food chain. The deep began to kiss my ankles
and I thought I would surely drown. I surmised that you
probably weren’t thinking about us at that moment and that
it was for the best. You had other matters on your mind.
I watched a miniature apocalypse take place and
I thought I should probably call and quickly tell you
that everything you ever loved was gone or going.
I decided against it.
Anything I say to you is gonna come out wrong anyway.
Aug 25, 2012
Aug 25, 2012 at 2:11 AM UTC
*His eyes rivet on the extravagant evening sun,
in frenzied creation, profusely mixing colors,
applying on the canvas of the horizon,
painting her, his lover with astonishing precision,
--portrait of a girl in love
unmindful of what the world thinks about her
and in total dedication to her man.
Love makes larger than life heroes out of weak mortals,
and creates echoes on the far horizons that keep on reverberating!
She sits quietly holding his hands as if it is all she needs
never thinking, it is obvious, whether this is a fallacy or ultimate truth,
that holds good for all the changing seasons.
With her long chiseled fingers she draws
something beautiful, a motif that emerged in her mind,
in front of them, the seascape, was a lively cyclorama
framed by bright ultramarine.
Like eels just out of water, their bodies gleaming,
bikini clad glam girls, beach soldiers spearheading
an undeclared beauty attack,
on the look out for hidden challenges
while walking past the love pair,
each one stands awhile, scrutinizing her thoroughly
measuring with a scale, hidden in those eyes,
as if she was a **** on parade, even women couldn't help covet.
Though inappropriately dressed, for the beachfront appearance,
she invites more attention, she is amused.
But after a tumultuous love, and eventful elopement
she is in bliss, in her love-land with her prince
she is just ecstatic, no thought could make her shake off her composure.*
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 2:15 AM UTC