"ferreting" poems
She was always
Simply
A
Lock
Away; all they needed was the
Key.
Those who found it
Lost it soon enough too.
But those who fashioned it,
themselves
Without deterring from the task
Without trying to replicate a lost key
With nothing but a
egami euqinu
In their minds
Of what the lock looked like
And what the key should look like
Only those few,
Few, very few
Wizards
who toiled to work their magic
Succeeded.
And they never lost their key
They necklaced it around their heart
A symbol that was now etched into
their existence
Entangled in the life of the veins
That this heart so solely depended on
Becoming one with them
Those were the lucky ones
The others, the ones she wished mattered
Were still only searching
Searching
Meandering
Probing
Ferreting
Still only looking for
A key that had once been used
And whose lock was now
Rust rusting rusted
With time.
Still searching
But never creating, of course
Always only searching
Until they found it
And then lost it again.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 2:48 AM UTC
Her orchards I often dream,
buries of my eye,
lost in my fairy book
of beaten pages,
of sunken tears and of mind.
I kept turning the pages, racing,
racing,
looking for her,
between the lines,
now gone,
gone ... are those
lovely high hanging trees,
elegant and so berried,
swaying and smiling,
her,
her saintly smile,
haunting,
yet shadowing me forever
in my mind.
Each page turned, a sad tear falls
deep and deeper,
for the pages are blank.
Her absence ferreting out
blackness,
skeletons and silhouettes,
the pages turning,
weeping ...
my heart pains
for the book of love
unwritten and unfinished.
The wishing well of ink unspent.
Her essence forever corked
from my heart ...
I now lay arrest,
peas in a pod,
aberration and distortion,
for
lovely those high hanging trees,
elegant and so berried,
gone.
Sullenly the music plays
to a different song.
Indelible was happenstance,
our chance encounter,
a special one at that,
puzzlement lays a longer shadow
... of why she walked,
without any words.
Logan Robertson
11/09/17
Nov 9, 2017
Nov 9, 2017 at 7:35 PM UTC
i am a predator,
preying on my self interests,
allied with wounded
spiritual ninjas,
seeking absolution,
ferreting out truth
and substance;
a live action rat
dragging the world's
biggest piece of stolen cheese.
What are you that is better?
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 2:54 PM UTC
a message sent to me:
“I know you, Marrano, secret Jew of my heart, weakened by words and strengthened thereby...stout man of words”^
a stranger invasion - his technology, a new combine of words,
percentage of perception high, a ferreting scraping of tissue,
an abrasion of spoiler alerts that are not hidden but now summoned, despite being unbidden early on a Sabbath morn
and at this, my haunted hours, this secret Jew,
wanders unexplored yet familiar routes
of his well traveled innards,
pondering this sweet Shylock Accusation, nay,
this confessional truth, but more, the nut of his essence that ‘tis
his conviction, his twisted sentencing, the exact lived-level of
a hellish Dante verse that shreds the escape of sleep,
that is home
“weakened by words and strengthened thereby”
words forced to the fore, peremptorily summoned,
this inconsistency so constant, his battle,
where neither victory, loss or truce, are resolutions legitimate,
contradictory poems are the tension production
of this high wire act of the man, a performance
best assessed as one of always slipping,
more near-falling failing than cross walking,
employing his word emissions as a balancing pole,
and balancing is a sometime thing
I am not an illusionist - if anything, a disillusionist
there are stanzas writ
but unspoken
that shall not be out-spit
here or now; for lengthy answers already exist,
in a thousand prior scripts
and
the thin wire of preservation
teaches the value of brevity
stout, I think not,
man of words,
no doubt,
one who is both,
a secret Marrano and a Jew, fully exposed,
and one who is
“weakened by words and strengthened thereby”
12/2/17 The Sabbath 3:33am
<•>
extra credit reading
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/529429/the-true-tale-of-shylocks-pound/
Dec 2, 2017
Dec 2, 2017 at 1:43 PM UTC
A nest of intricate design
A piece of art unmatched in decor
Amid the dark verdure
Of needle like leaves
The gay habitat of a swallow and her brood.
How suddenly it erupts into a clatter of sounds,
As the mother bird comes diving in
With a wee bit of a wriggling worm
Discreetly borne in her tiny beak.
Thrusting it into the gaping mouths
She departs and comes again
And again comes with something
A whirring insect or a twisting thing.
Nothing can appease her ravenous horde
And on she goes ferreting about.
At night fall she alights abrupt
From what infinite heights, God alone knows
Darting into her nest as she hovers,
The din subsides............
First into a fizzle, then into sharp silence
Bundled in her warmth, the little ones
Sleep till the first flutter of dawn
From my window, I enjoy this diurnal scene
Repeating itself in methodical precision
Until someday, into heaven’s insurmountable heights
The young ones take off on tiny wings!
A sight so accustomed, cheery and gleeful
My eyes would soon be deprived of
And the thought makes me ill at ease
A wonder it is, the young ones
Inexperienced though, thrives so well
On catapulted suddenly into an eerie world!
What husbandry in nature!
What Godly solicitude!
The next morn, my heart missed a beat
At what I espied through my open window.
On the ground lay the swallow’s nest
Ripped, broken and blown to pieces
Like a heap of rubble after a tremor.
By its side lay a few downy feathers
The sad reminder of a stark felony!
In an instant flashed past
The grim image of the black Tom cat
That prowls my courtyard in the dark
With glowing eyes and bristly whiskers
Damning that accursed thing
I picked up that wreckage
My mind violently mutinying over
The ‘insolent might’!!
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 12:24 PM UTC
Little kitty poked and proded
Wanting to know everything
that the world had to offer her
Not caring about the consequences
her actions might have.
She wiggles her way into things
sometimes in way over her head.
Seeking the truth
Ferreting out the lies.
No matter the price.
Then one day her curiosity got to her
You know what they say
Curiosity killed the cat.
Her heart smashed
into a million shattered hopes
A million shattered promises.
Revenge formed in her deadened brain
Making the gears work again.
She pulled together her scattered heart
She plotted to right the wrong.
And laughed as it took place
Because
Curiosity killed the Cat
But what everyone doesnt know is,
Satisfaction Brought It Back.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 10:38 AM UTC
Over thirty thousand years ago a pregnant she-wolf
And her mate lay hidden in the grass
Watching some of our human ancestors
Hunt with spears, bows and arrows.
They were very impressed
But more than that so hungry
That they followed those humans home
Hoping to steal some meat.
They were just about to ****** that food
When a humans appeared
All around them.
They were caught!
All they could do was look up with pleading eyes:
“Please don’t **** us! We just want food.”
Seeing one of them was heavily pregnant
Those humans presumed them starving
And threw them meat
Then let them go!
Hungry again, they went back for more
And the humans fed them
And even stroked them.
This was so much better
Than having to search for prey
So often without reward.
And as time passed they took to accompanying these humans
On their hunts
Then ferreting out some prey for them to shoot
Rounding animals up
And retrieving those shot down by arrows.
Soon the rest of their pack joined them
And the female wolf had her pups
Near the human camp
Where it was safe.
She taught her pups
To plead for food and care
With their eyes and whines.
Those wolves remained forever,
Generation after generation
Each litter getting cuter
And softer
And more loving
Towards mankind.
And so they evolved
Into a seemingly endless variety
Of “Dogs”.
From Rottweilers to tiny Poodles,
German Shepherds and Collies to Chihuahuas.
They became known as “Man’s Best Friend”,
Showing us unconditional Love
And loyalty:
A bond like no other.
Even evolving raised eyebrows
And deeply sad eyes
To attract our love and care.
Domesticating themselves
Yet begging the question
Who is really “the master”?
My money is on
Them.
Paul Butters
© PB 20\3\2021.
Mar 20, 2021
Mar 20, 2021 at 8:04 AM UTC
my heart is a stray dog,
endlessly ferreting throughout the world,
for a face that feels like home,
one that will simply love him,
even if it’s unhealthy,
because its the one thing,
he craves the most.
Aug 17, 2025
Aug 17, 2025 at 1:24 AM UTC
I dithered to my feet
My mind partly ridden by aberration
My eyes in pursuit of any remaining tinctures of light
My frustration disseminating its benumbing beams
Pulverizing every hope of my survival
But darkness prevailed my surroundings
Darkness-that was enthralling every limb of my body
Leaving me trammeled within this pandemonium
Perhaps my annihilation lied within this vacuity
This dark abyss from where return was merely improbable
I spent time contemplating,
Wondering, what brought me to this tenebrous threshold?
Ferreting for that egregious crime I had committed
Which made me susceptible to such castigation?
Was it my flagrancy or imperative innocence?
I thought incessantly,
But nothing could I come up with
Other than my fault of being ignorant
Ignorant on part of our flaws,
The flaws of the inhabitants of this opaque world
Then in the midst of my depression
Emerged a distant spark of blue light
A light- as distant as the sun,
A light- capable of illuminating the world
This spark flickered, blossomed and radiated
Gradually eating up the darkness
Slowly letting itself ablaze
Its heat so intense and almost emanating
I lunged towards it
But came back stumbling down
No- I thought this was not the end-
My unwavering fortitude compelled me to rise
I ran and ran, till it was in my hands
Till I rose triumphant in my pursuit of light.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 2:44 PM UTC
How do we get ourselves
back from the lost places
inside our own minds;
the places where self-doubt
swims like a school
of sharks,
a school of thought?
The page,
tells the kindest
lies;
doesn’t always have
to be true,
however, it should
be honest.
It should hurt
A little.
Like…
a cage fighter,
like razor-wire,
like a coffee cup,
like a broken bottle,
like suede,
like the left wing
of a hawk
or
the right wing
of a vulture.
Like the backfire
of an old car,
the roar of
a shotgun;
the tink and plink of
buckshot on
an old 50-gallon
drum.
like a saw-tooth,
like a lion’s roar,
like a warm blanket
or
a war machine,
like something sweet,
that’s become something
else,
something obscene.
like a sonic-boom
rattles a pane
of glass.
Nothing is really,
like anything else,
we’re all simply
figuring everything
out for ourselves.
We’re fettering,
ferreting our own
truths from
betwixt the
lines, our own lies
so,
keep a
keen mind,
a watchful
eye.
***
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 10:10 AM UTC
Lifeblood of democracy hemorrhaging
ousting the "FAKE" president only recourse
to staunch impending grim demise,
since forefathers drafted
United States Constitution
ratified more'n two centuries ago
hoi polloi must take to the streets
denouncing severe curtailment
impinging sacred freedom of speech
linkedin with paramount bedrock provision
accessing unvarnished flint ****** "truth,"
nonetheless commander in chief
he quakingly, staunchly, vociferously...
excoriates, lacerates, repudiates...
one damning hermetically sealed,
iniquitous airtight, vacuum packed
flagrant misuse of power,
(not to mention nepotism)
invidious, insidious, injurious... infractions
incontestable, incontrovertible, contemptible...
significant melange in führer
re: hating deplorably
crooked basely barren
factual exposé after another,
deft correspondents all not quiet
along western front
(I heard Maria - mull remark)
bring "to light" execrable,
lamentable reprehensible...
gross transgressions
commander in chief
significantly overstepped
Pulitzer prize winning
prestigious storied publications
scathingly trounced, pillaried,
lambasted, insulted, denounced,
butchered, critiqued, demonized,
fricassed, gored, humiliated,...
pummeled, quartered, reviled
courageously expounding fiend
ensconced within his Taj Mahal
impregnable donjon, whereat he trumpets
laurels asper, nonpareil administration
laying groundless accusations
baring his white fangs,
twittering, naysaying, mocking.. supreme
renown gifted by "honest Abe"
recalcitrant commander in chief,
who refutes objectionable
dogged investigative journalism
every step of the way,
where dedicated news gatherers
risk life and limb
firing line reportage troopers
ferreting (foxlike) *****
doth gopher precious nuggets
uncover alarming undisputable details
impossible to refute raw bits
agent provocateur freely colluding
immediately hashtashed poppycock
smarmy, snooty, snappy
beastly capital one ogre
blatantly castigating diligent endeavors
oblivious pie in sky
delusional egotistic haughtiness
bobblehead vilified by silent majority.
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019 at 9:29 PM UTC