"fig" poems
#*It is out of the heart’s cavernous longing and furious search
for love, significance, acceptance, approval, identity, security,
freedom, belonging, innocence, intimacy and transcendence—
out of its primordial memory of what was lost to us in the Garden—
that we begin to ***** idols for ourselves.
Unconsciously we hope they might restore to us a taste of paradise,
taking away our fear and shame and isolation.
We yearn to go back but, alas, we cannot get in from there.
We ache to connect to beauty, to be desired by it as much as we desire it,
and Jesus is the only door by which we may enter.
He is the Beauty, and all the rest are simply there like pealing bells
to arouse our hearts to Him and tell us that He is coming for us.
Still, as if we haven’t quite yet heard and believed the message, we keep
aimlessly trying to forge a false righteousness through our false gods.
When they are lost or the dreams of them unrealized we are devastated,
for the shadows, echoes and reflections we had supposed would finally
make us feel good about ourselves have been exposed as frauds,
and once again we are left to feel naked but without fig leaves to cover us.
It is at these precise moments, when the bottom of our false hope falls out,
that we are best prepared to encounter Christ in His intimate
fullness and most apt to recognize at last that He alone is
everything we have been so desperately wanting.
It is our boiling point, where the unbearable weight
of failed expectation so crashes in on us that we are finally
begging God to lift our idols off of us and deliver us from them,
pleading with Him to come and capture us,
crying out to Him to possess us fully.*#
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 12:58 PM UTC
#*It is out of the heart’s cavernous longing and furious search
for love, significance, acceptance, approval, identity, security,
freedom, belonging, innocence, intimacy and transcendence—
out of its primordial memory of what was lost to us in the Garden—
that we begin to ***** idols for ourselves.
Unconsciously we hope they might restore to us a taste of paradise,
taking away our fear and shame and isolation.
We yearn to go back but, alas, we cannot get in from there.
We ache to connect to beauty, to be desired by it as much as we desire it,
and Jesus is the only door by which we may enter.
He is the Beauty, and all the rest are simply there like pealing bells
to arouse our hearts to Him and tell us that He is coming for us.
Still, as if we haven’t quite yet heard and believed the message, we keep
aimlessly trying to forge a false righteousness through our false gods.
When they are lost or the dreams of them unrealized we are devastated,
for the shadows, echoes and reflections we had supposed would finally
make us feel good about ourselves have been exposed as frauds,
and once again we are left to feel naked but without fig leaves to cover us.
It is at these precise moments, when the bottom of our false hope falls out,
that we are best prepared to encounter Christ in His intimate fullness
and most apt to recognize at last that He alone is everything
we have been so desperately wanting.
It is our boiling point, where the unbearable weight
of failed expectation so crashes in on us that we are finally
begging God to lift our idols off of us and deliver us from them,
pleading with Him to come and capture us,
crying out to Him to possess us fully.*#
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 10:41 PM UTC
a curved pastry
like a prune danish
in a sway
a weaving kiss
anointed by a melting stick of butter,
pushed and puddled
deep and slow
the shape of a heart
with a hole in the middle
ooow dark fig
stinking rose
a comfort that sweetens with the grace of form
and pops like a trigger releasing a bullet
i covet
with eyes like erections
pants sticky wet
hot glue factory
for you love, my *** angel
red skin girl gaping
with circular yearning set in motion
tarnished petal mix meister
sinful hot house
for quaking tongue and lips,
a wild cherry *** kisser
spiked ***** blushing
lord of ****
solar ******* hero
flexed and oiled
to the rescue
a god send
triumphant and blessed
looks like a fast cigarette boat
hitting the speed bumps hard
she said yes please
dip like
nautilus of the black sea
What?
no loitering
no parking
not a through street
haahaahaa
****
that
****
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
flex and perspire my darling
would you mind a small suffering for craven kisses
to have your dark fig **** and drenching *****
stroked with a tickling finger lingering
and strong hands around your sweetly curved throat
that shunt the breath
to yield willingly for sharp-toothed nibbles with surprise tongue whipping?
will you present your soft belly and cupping *******
for dark cruelties that excite beyond tabulation
will you present yourself with smiles
and goddess leg show
sobbing for feral pink spires gleaming
while quivering thighs
turn hot red from the slap of the leather strap splitting stings?
will tears of love
mix in wild berry utterance
and flashing spitfire’s tongue?
are you made for this?
your every whimper an invitation
like an open pink gate
do you need the saint of dark desires to rescue you
from banal dim-witted all american in and out?
do you need to drown in oceanic wave tsunamis
of hot butter **** glitter, blood flooding gasms
and tender aftercare?
my wish
that you shimmer like silver
possessed
by the saint of sadism
popes of eros
who fill you with the milk of the moon
all stars that melt you into the depths of paradise
and that this dark ecstasy
is the only suffering you will ever know.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 6:27 AM UTC
Darling, there are few facts that you
must know as a student of science,
And there are many more that you
must know as a cute human being.
There are three bearing mango trees
& one guava tree outside our home,
The guava tree is infested with the
parasitic growth of a sacred fig tree.
After many years' from today
the "Bargad" tree will grow out,
Ousting the guava tree it will finally
be free but it won't forget guava tree.
It will always feel having been parented by the guava tree, and so it might actually become a hybrid of both the trees and so a love child hybrid tree would ultimately give shade and fruits to people in the future generation.
So should the ideal love of a human being be inspired towards everyone including the ones who they love and fellow human beings - selfless and pure.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 1:09 AM UTC
Take the knapsacks
and the utensils and washtubs
and the books of the Koran
and the army fatigues
and the tall tales and the torn soul
and whatever's left, bread or meat,
and kids running around like chickens in the village.
How many children do you have?
How many children did you have?
It's hard to keep tabs on kids in a situation like this.
Not like in the old country
in the shade of the mosque and the fig tree,
when the children the children would be shooed outside by day
and put to bed at night.
Put whatever isn't fragile into sacks,
clothes and blankets and bedding and diapers
and something for a souvenir
like a shiny artillery shell perhaps,
or some kind of useful tool,
and the babies with rheumy eyes
and the R.P.G. kids.
We want to see you in the water, sailing aimlessly
with no harbor and no shore.
You won't be accepted anywhere
You are banished human beings.
You are people who don't count
You are people who aren't needed
You are a pinch of lice
stinging and itching
to madness.
Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.
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Tibetan Brimstone butterflies wave wings madly at their paradise valley
In the beginning, before the beginning, and in the beginning
Their shaken snow globe makes them flutter in wild exuberance
As they reveal a mountain, then no mountain, then Kunlun again
Peace, followed by chaos, and then by peace
Mother Luna's kaleidoscope of enlightenment
Protected by the hooded one
Holds all worlds and shakes the four seasons
Nothingness, creation, abiding, destruction
The wheel of time
Moves the wind as it’s blown by vast circles of water
Aqua marine is washed again by golden earth
And in the center, the great opal mountain song of La
Nature's peace
Beyond white leopard snows, icy winds, and empty husks of death
Butterflies are born again
Shambhala’s mindful beat opens passage for light through darkness
Poets squint and ride on wings toward the hidden sunset kingdom
Watching another world's Avalon alive beneath a blue moon
Insulated chrysalis of love for all seasons
A fisherman, a carpenter, a shepherd, a merchant, a caterpillar
Discover a lush, isolated, peach grove
Nosing thickly scented nectar and purple primrose honey
In the jade valley of the kings, queens, and beggars
They meditate under the Bodhi Tree
Deep brown ****** lines are carved into their soft olive skin
Smooth hands are made rough, and then smooth again
Young, then old, and then young once more
Wisdom setting beside Queen Spirit Mother of the West
Sharing a bowl of her rice milk in harmony
Being in the realm between man and nature as Kalachakra turns
For six years the caterpillar eats of fig
And then the wheel breaks for flight one last time
Radiating light as she sheds her glorious wings
Here, the snow globe explodes flying petals of wild exuberance
Revealing a mountain, then no mountain, then Kunlun again
Transcending all, turning tears into the suns joyful rays
As they rise, then set, and then rise again
Nirvana
Beyond our Lost Horizon
© 2019 MJL
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 10:01 AM UTC
Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.
Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.
Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.
Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.
Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.
Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.
Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.
All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.
Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.
All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.
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Have you met the Who-Gee Boo-Gee Man?
He scammed fig leafs in the garden,
And **** cloth in Ottoman.
outside-in, inside-out; upside-down, right-side up
The Who-gee Boo-gee Man can cuss.
He offers snake oil, spins a tale,
So you feel smart, healthy and hale.
from top to bottom, bottom to top
The Who-gee Boo-gee Man can't stop.
He swrawls with a Sharpie pen.
right is left, left is wrong
That's the Who-Gee Boo-Gee song.
Consultation for now is free,
No hidden added extra fees:
You buy two, you get three.
north to south, east to west
The Who-Gee Boo-Gee Man won't rest.
I've heard his feet are cloven;
The eyes are yellow, lips look swollen;
He has two fingers, wears silk- woven.
He sweats like water to the lowest level;
He's quicker than the slyest devil,
Selling hell, but we hear heaven;
Doing so twenty-four seven.
He photo-shops secret desires,
Twists truth-tellers into liars;
Artful, wily, scheming, subtle,
The Who-Gee Boo-Gee's a hungry jackal.
*today is the day, yesterday's late,
tomorrow's a place that just won't wait*
I met up with the Who-Gee Boo-Gee Man,
Peddling apples from my jardain.
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 10:26 AM UTC
The way fig flesh
Folds itself
into each hour,
its skin rubbed
from gray to
purple, bitten into
yellow prickled with
gold seeds stuck
to your lips. It’s
late, maybe midnight
or two we’re not sure
as our feet trip
over stone streets and
we bid the other
buona notte.
I am hungry and
very much wanting
*** Instead
I sauté the
zucchini blossoms
my host mom
bought all’mercado.
and in her kitchen
I lick
the mouth of the
olive oil bottle as
the petals pucker
in her cast iron
pan and then with
a whisper of salt
they are burning
my mouth as I
pluck
each
from the pan, oil
dripping down my
wrists and after I
am still hungry
and very much
wanting ***
but I decide
it’s enough
to have figs and
zucchini blossoms
and I go to bed,
my mouth tasting
something
like a melody.
Oct 7, 2015
Oct 7, 2015 at 4:38 PM UTC
my boy with fig leaves and lightning bugs
tied up in his hair, he kneels with
crimson palms pressed to the unquiet dirt
and hums an abandoned melody.
my boy with sunbeams shining through his skin on the riverbank,
neatly coating the grass in thin white trails, woven into footprints like cotton twine, snaking their way across brown earth,
ankles slick with mud and the dead things that lay just underneath.
my boy with rosewater and stained glass ashes
feels me bless him with blackberries and the softest crush of words,
ice cubed, beneath my lips,
as he wipes the ichor from my chest with callouses
worn down gentle.
the light echoes from his skin
there are no symphonies nor sacraments,
only cicadas singing warmth to shivering willows.
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
ARTICHOKES are very nice roasted with pine nuts
Who likes BANANA cream pie?
They say that eating CARROTS improves your eye sight
Along the river Nile there are many DATE palms
ELDERBERRIES make a flavorsome wine
Piths from a FIG can easily get stuck between your teeth
Nape tape and shape all rhyme with GRAPE
HORSERADISH has a hot tangy taste
ICE-PLANT is a much used vegetable in Chinese cookery
The oil extract from JUNIPER BERRIES produces quine
My sister likes KALE steamed with lemon rind
It is so nice to munch on a LETTUCE leaf
MANDARINS are presently plentiful at the green grocer's
NEEPS can be mashed or left whole
On a hot summer day chilled ORANGE juice goes down well
Has anyone got a good PUMPKIN scone recipe?
Lashings of QUINCE jam were spread on my toast
The lady next door grows RHUBARB
SPINACH gave Popeye much strength
Smothering sausages in TOMATO sauce is sensational
UGLI is a member of the citrus family
In New Orleans you'll find fresh VELVET BEANS
WATERCRESS salad is so easy to prepare
XIGUA is a type of WATERMELON
YAMS are a staple of the New Guinean diet
ZUCCHINI bread is delicious fair
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 2:32 AM UTC
I did not bloom for you.
I wasn’t planted with hope of a hand like yours
to pluck what I became.
I was here.
Growing in a quiet grove,
on the edge of the unseen—
roots tangled in silence,
leaves turned to a sun I thought only I could feel.
You came like weather.
Not loud,
but felt.
A shift in the light.
A question in the wind.
I didn’t call to you.
But still,
you found me.
I watched you stumble in—
mouth stained from strange fruits,
eyes glazed from sweetness that lied.
And I knew you were not lost.
You were done.
Done with wandering.
Done with feasting on ache.
Done with mistaking hunger for worth.
You looked at me like I was something
you’d dreamed once and forgotten.
Like tasting me
woke up something ancient in you.
And it did in me, too.
Because I didn’t know I was waiting—
not for you,
but for recognition.
For a mouth that didn’t devour,
but asked.
For hands that didn’t harvest,
but listened.
And when you bit into me,
you didn’t praise.
You closed your eyes
and let silence say it.
That was the moment.
No music.
No miracle.
Just two beings
who didn’t know they were searching
until they stopped.
Now here we are.
Still.
Rooted.
Fed.
Not written in the stars—
but grown in the dirt,
together.
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 2:26 AM UTC
when i want inspiration to write poetry
i watch a heaving tempest of kisses
they have a better flavor
than cooking shows
what's prettier than pretty pretty
in pigtails
shaking her delicious
derriere whipped Soufflé?
i'm kissing butter princess
witchy ****
spread lickity splits
eating her
with a big wide **** eating grin
like an open face dagwood
whats more poetic than that hopeful glaring
of
Adonis's plumper in paradise
filling Cleopatra's slathered meringue?
ga-ga-ga-gag me, daddy
merciless, pa-leazze
fluttered big wet talking eyes
like pools of blue honey
getting it zigged zagged
hard against a redraw mouth
throttling fluted gullet
while eager throat gasps
a symphonic music of the spheres
in relentless staccato chokes
lovin her big devil **** splashing
all gym built wonder-boy
a litter of ****** and tongues
licking pig greedy
rapturous milkshake waterfalls
whimpering
mmmmmm
oooh big daddy
oh my ****** god
pillar of colossus
you Tunisian donut you
pierce me like a spoon
through summer guava
who screams like that eating lunch
but a half ate apricot?
better than a football game
I'd rather take her greek
more fun than math or small talk
preferable to a pat on the back at work
or a ridged procession at a funeral
oh beautiful dark fig
squatting crotch candy
bubbling tapioca ***
queen of
spun sugar ****
all pyrotechnics
and fluttering sinews
if you asked most
do they watch ****
they'd grow smug like a senator
or punch you in the mouth
outwardly high-minded
refusing the blessing of a
video **** parade
of pirouetting vaginas
and glistening areolas
for the glory
of the secret ************ ceremony
the *** moralists
only good for a secret ******
living their lives
with passions submerged
and nothing to confess
except for guilty offerings
as they wander through dreamland shopping malls
wanting to know
Victorias ***** little secret
seduced
but not caressed
by
a mouthpiece for castrated dreams
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 4:05 PM UTC
.
Fig leaves suit you,
but I can't wait 'til Autumn ;)
© Pagan Paul (2018)
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 1:39 PM UTC
Bursting cherries
remind me of
the vibrancy of your
curious lips
Juicy peaches
drippin' down your
chin; a memory
from years
before.
Sour lemons
perking you up,
for the hungry
kiss.
Oranges glisten as
they mimic
sundown in the
city.
Sunsets gleam
orange and yellow,
illuminating crowds of
individuals, morphing
everyone into
no-one.
Alone, you peak through;
standing with
intention and innocence
among the shadows and
empty bodies, admiring
Mother Nature's
harvest.
You stand there
looking as sweet as
a fig; as wild and ripe
as a strawberry,
just waiting
to get
eaten.
Just waiting for
me to
place my lips
so delicately around
the curve of your
ripened
body.
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 9:48 PM UTC
What a sweet/savory masterpiece!
Always thought I would ask
for lobster as my last meal*
but your juicy succulence
touched my stomach
in naughty places
and now I cannot stop thinking of you!
I think it goes without saying
that you're the best tasting burger on the planet
despite the fact that I have yet to try
all the burgers on the planet.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 4:49 AM UTC
sitting across from you
at the white kitchen table
or cross-legged on my side of the bed
is someone hollow.
not as sweet as a fig. not as dead
as the inside of a black rotting trunk
but close. i do not hold beautiful things
like a terracotta vase. inside my head
is a seam ripper that splits everything
down the middle. sometimes
you are standing in front of the bright window,
glowing like a saint. sometimes
i let you fall into an algae-lined pool
that i will not pay to have cleaned.
everything is floating within me.
i haven’t figured out
how to anchor this stuff down.
no one ever taught me how
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 5:15 PM UTC
Jewelled pomegranate
rich in sparkling seed
A kiss for each
we sing
I serve you
the fig
open
Drip -
ping
Honey
.
Apr 25, 2010
Apr 25, 2010 at 3:30 PM UTC
Fig Newton Vanilla Wafers
Like sand through an hourglass
The smell of Doublemint Wrigley’s
Gum that lingers in the air like
Your poltergeist hanging on a string
Chicken and dumplings
Christmas at your place
There were so many pictures and
Do you remember me anymore?
Quicksand neurons coughing up
Phlegm and congestive heart failure
Diabetic membranes hooked up to pacemakers
You’re kidneys were caustic waste bins
And you ****** yourself
Cancer Cancer
Don’t shut your eyes
***** and hypertension
Hyperventilation
My mother is crying
I’m crying
Don’t die
Please don't die
"She’s not responding"
"Somebody say something"
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 2:00 PM UTC
The broken biscuits lay in a tin
An ordinary oblong tin
With turquoise pattern
And pink embossed flowers
Gold edged to finish the job.
How many times I visited
That tin on the middle shelf
In the top half of a cupboard,
Sawn door, to allow for fridge,
And quietly took out the tin.
Broken biscuits were my delight
All shapes and sizes tasty bites
Wafers, bourbon, custard creams
Rich tea, digestive all suited me
Sometimes fig sandwich, pleased.
Love Mary
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 7:05 AM UTC
it will be, you know
1.
small bird
shivering
kind hand
covering
warmth
spreading
destined
for life
2.
her well-trained cats
at the door
ants always spared (!)
on sill
with sugared saucer
poultry in the yard
collecting deep-yolked eggs
making gooseberry jam
and sweet, strong tea
with hot milk
just for me
she taught me inner grace
and the real meaning
of quietness
just birds chattering away
whistling wondrous
in fig trees
laden with heavy fruit
awaiting her deft hands
how I loved her so
accounting exams
interrupted
in sixth grade
sorry
she's gone, dear
dumbstruck silence
they ask
why I'm not crying?
3.
kismet peeps in
to embrace you
and kiss your brow
you try to sidestep
and stub a toe
knock your head
in the end:
full-circle prayer
que sera...sera
S T, 28 June 2013
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 3:32 PM UTC
Really my Lady, such was not my Intent
To be the Bordered Jack who ***** your Consent
Your Basket remains yet much Food was Spent
And yes - the Reason - it's Bottom was Rent
Should we blame the Urchin? That I guess not
The Market was charged in Prunes worth to Sell
Else I peel each Fruit and leave it to Rot
Then shoulder the Rage of not being well
There She is: The only Unforeseen Truth
Distempered with my Touch of Forks and lies
Which I should have learned in her Peeling Youth:
That a Prune once tasted tastes better with the Eye.
All this I learned in a Lesson so Big
That the Grape recovered was born a Fig.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 2:52 AM UTC
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.
Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.
Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
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