"forager" poems
in the icy swirl
of deep-inhale
I reach down inside
to darkest
heated flesh-fabric
removing the clothing
of my soul,
feeling the layers
slowly undone
the flay
of my own fleece
the peeling
of my own pelt
penetrating
through tissue,
a journey to the
deep heart of me,
cut in one clean move
and yet, like a miracle
there is
no pain
just magnet-connect
beyond the cusp
of words
that curl from our
tongues
rising up in
latticed affirmations
a cleansing in frost
a constant, aquamarine renewal
and there is no past
no future
just this prism
of crystal liquid jewels
flowing in
gentle,
cellular music
straight into the strands
of our veins
and I miss you
like you have gone
on the long winter hunt
my longing splayed out
like an animal skin on
four poles
its tendons stretched
beyond measure
yet holding fast
with a roof over my head,
I acknowledge
my restlessness
I am my own
hunter-forager,
both searching and found,
gathering up bits
of velocity
stroking the ribbons
of passion
stoking the fires of my
heart and hearth
protecting what is us
like a lioness
for we are overflowing
with both strength
and tenderness
our own bones
ingredients of the wild soup
of our feral union
of our constant rebirth
our very dna
weaving itself
like heartstrings
in the rush
of
time
Dec 9, 2017
Dec 9, 2017 at 6:35 PM UTC
Grinding....
Leaving it silenced, drawn and quartered
Clawing for the scraps left over
Predicament I found myself in
Or, towards the end of it
Slipping from the edges
Forager focused on finding any way back home
Sidetracked by some apparition left crying
Alone, in the corner
Grinding...
Paused, with rain drops weighted, heavy sense in the air
I can feel my lips turning blue and
Twitching
It's more literal than I would dare dream in a waking nightmare
The smell of every molecule tantamount to another realm
Hangs motionless in the air
The stone transposed becomes a rooftop asylum, overlooking such uncouth misanthropic parcels, self absorbed in this grotesque imagery, a veritable wall of self hate puzzle pieces
Grinding...
Low, on an almost ominous note, still grows colder in my ears
Blowing on winds filled with the spite and righteous
Anti holy
Fully rupturing sound of far off laughter of the
New root
My lips still moving
No sound produced
And my mind
Grinding...
I still pray to god for you
Beset on all sides by the same wickedness
Still afflicted by myself
Argue for arguments sake
****** up on the uptake
I thought that you might want it
I guess I forgot all the subtle ways
The fires spring to life at night
Arguably the wrong choice is
Looking at him
I try not to
Catch that glimpse in his eye
Already my mind races
And my bones are shivering
At the thought alone
Brickwork backing
Still swells maggots
And filing paperwork
For entrapment habits
Grinding
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 4:56 PM UTC
She is not just a woman, or just some mere creation to me.
Seeith, she hast a halo, fulsome and rapturous in highest degree.
Seeith, doth thou friend; her eye's as a muffled jungle panther;
They dance the uncultivated bush, the wind here is her laughter.
Cool, it bloweth upon thine sweltered cheek's, she's unseen;
Like a dream, she is the shelter every forager desires to keep.
I'm hidden amongst the shrub, dying to taketh a peek;
I want to catch a glimpse of her, in all her amour', her taste, fine;
Her spirit is mine, one of a kind, a dining shine, whilst the moon,
In ourn room, she clutches mine anatomy, O', how I'm so happy.
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane nagley dedication ( filipino rose)
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 10:23 AM UTC
As you walk through the city street
there's something that you may not know.
What's going on under your feet
only metres down below.
Life is multiplying fast,
migrating sometimes up above,
to forage through your garbage bags
gathering the free food that we all love.
We carry with us little friends
that pack a really powerful punch
and there's nothing they appreciate more
than human blood for their lunch.
With the lesson of the past forgotten
by you humans up above
where millions died because of filth
and everyone lost someone they'd loved.
Yet still you throw away your waste,
you leave it lying on the street.
Disease is on it's way to you you
from little forager under your feet.
Call this disease what err you will.
Black-death, the pox but it's on its way
and all because you can't be bothered
but in the end it's you who'll pay.
In the meantime we will breed en-mass,
our babies growing, getting fat
and all can deliver to you this fate.
I really do love being a Rat.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 8:18 AM UTC
I lap from puddles,
tasting of blistered bark,
teeth green from the moss
deer abandoned.
Fed the fire with Walden,
Its spine snapped
like a rabbit’s neck.
Ash branded my palms
with unread philosophy.
Soon it will be winter.
I’ll freeze stiff: a fallen carcass.
Unless poems hatch inside me,
larvae splitting bone from within.
Sep 14, 2025
Sep 14, 2025 at 6:42 PM UTC
the only jeans with holes,
the polo shirt with "passionate peach" paint
from the kitchen remodel she wanted, the yard work shoes
these were the raiments he chose for his final drive, the one in "park"
in the garage, with the engine idling, its humming a monotonous lullaby
sung by compliant pistons
he wandered through the house
like a sated forager, looking at everything, for nothing,
old pictures on the walls--children, parents, one of himself,
the Yale mortar board tilting on a face who could
have been a stranger, and was, that last afternoon
books on shelves, mostly read, their stories now forgotten
even Moby **** his favorite--eight silent vertical letters
replacing a white whale he relentlessly pursued with Ahab
a sink with one small plate and the disposal's shining ring,
the burial ground for his last, uneaten meal
those were the visions he chose
before writing his notorious note,
"BYE, ALL MY PAPERS ARE IN THE ROLL TOP"
taking the keys from the peg, and taking his final steps
into the cluttered gray garage, to his 2011 Volvo
when some hand turned the key,
igniting a welcoming flame, a few intrusive notes
of a Beatles song came through the six speaking speakers
yanking something in his gut, pulling his hand
to the handle to open the door, to return to the house,
the pictures, the stories on the walls, but the other,
the right hand, ejected the CD, rejecting the beguiling voices
that would have him stay, for another dull, deaf day
he folded his hands in his lap,
allowed his chin to rest on his chest
where his eyes could see the holes in his threadbare denim
taking solace in the fact that he had chosen the right clothes
so those still in the house, yet in the blur called life
would have only whole and clean reminders of him
to fold neatly, and leave on the porch
for the Salvation Army
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM UTC
wandering the almost deserted beach
linen slacks turned up to
the knees and a flowing
shirt that flags out behind her.
hat in hand she stoops and rifles through the firm tideline sand and deftly flicks her treasure into a plastic blue bucket. her feet shift to accomodate the salt water wavelets that play tag
with her manicured toes.
she glances sideways at the sea
judging time and tide
as she gathers her bucket
of pipis
destined for the dinner table.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 1:02 AM UTC
'Cape Town
is not in SA,'
she said.
My mind darts back to
the bus.
We sit
in an overly-cooled double-decker
like sweating bottles in a plastic cooler-box
- jerking and clunking and
squirming - skin stuck to PVC comfort
and upstairs,
breezing through
the city, taking in the sights.
Tourists.
I am a tourist in my own country.
We all are
because we cannot
span a hierarchy in
one lifespan.
For those that doubt -
let it be known that our land
is rich.
It can be noted in our gold
which brought the interest of European nations -
attracted to the glow of ore and the glint in our river rocks,
allowing them to watch
our brown-skinned beauties,
with clay pots and earthy skins beaded
with sweat, sway away
only to follow them
(not with sight alone)
and surrender the crown jewels
to enrich our land - a new born culture.
They knew our land was fertile.
They saw the potential of our fruit.
They brought the slaves with them.
They gave us coloured children,
European red in their veins and now picking white grapes off the vines.
They never wanted to leave
so they fermented,
barreled, corked.
They gave us jobs and homes and vaalwyn.
They took a lot
- our gold, our jewels, our women, our soil -
but they introduced
diversity.
We are rich.
But why is he so poor?
Don't look now
but on your left is a beggar.
Coloured,
clothes discoloured.
Unaware of our presence,
he digs through the refuse with a
growling stomach.
We all stare -
a double-decker full of eyes aimed
at the oblivious forager -
I turn my gaze.
How is it that we have
so much and so little
at the same time?
How is it that our president spends our income on Nkandla
and not this boy?
How is it that Helen and Patricia put up portable loos along the shanty fence
but have forgotten to feed this poor soul?
How is it possible for me to sit in uncomfortably icy air
while my brother burns under the glare of my fellow travelers?
He and I,
we are of the same land.
We are both rich.
Yet both of us display a reality
that neither of us truly deserves.
'Cape Town is in SA,'
I say.
We just have no idea.
Ignorance is indeed blissful
but it is also most wasteful.
Our land is rich and our people
deserve more than a blind eye.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 2:36 PM UTC
The bearded man in the forager’s cap rode in on little sorrel that night.
Lee had called a council of war to game plan for the coming fight.
The Northern aggressors were on the move but they might be vulnerable on their right.
It was a bold audacious plan to divide in the face of the foe.
The Calvary screen was key to the scheme to find where best to strike the blow.
The battle would be called Lee’s masterpiece; Hooker’s men broke and they fled.
but the battle would also be Jackson’s last; in just a few days he’d be dead..
In the dark of May second, men rode the plank road, Jackson rode at their head
Did they ignore the Sentry’s challenge? Or did the sentry mishear what they said?
They took Jackson arm, the saw-blade did sing, but alas it was to no avail
He crossed over the river to rest neath the shade of the trees in the hero’s vale
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 10:45 PM UTC
Pick a bird you’d like to be
Heron, eagle, hummingbird
Daring, large, fast, gaudy,
Or camouflaged,
a small brown forager
spiraling a tree.
Tending to bark and larvae.
Ruth Solnit, February 2021
Feb 10, 2021
Feb 10, 2021 at 3:43 PM UTC
you know, after collecting an obscure library of music,
i feel nothing for the MP3 highwaymen
of Napster et al.,
being the forager on the internet from time to time
for the diamond berries,
then from time to time turning the radio on
and relaxing with these high brow moral airs
on the backseat with a d.j. surprising me -
like any man respecting the arts, i'd tell these
MP3 thieves to turn on the radio from time to time,
but, oh wait... they haven't invested in music,
so i guess listening to the radio would be
like running stark naked on a football pitch.
**** no pause, and i'm about to refill -
absolute, or ageing with 40 year old's nostalgia
concerning Brit-Pop and their older brother's or uncles
tastes; match-made-in-heaven.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 10:08 PM UTC
“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to **** one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 11:09 PM UTC
Briar vines merely scratched the itch for more ,
porcelain fingers tattooed wine red
Morning rays become possessed , muting -
early day laughter and fervent desires
Humid air thickened with pine , wild grass ,
-fertile humus , clay and wisteria
Stirring the brown locust , bluebird , thrasher ,
Guinea wasp , blue skink , toad and cottontail
Three ripe berries in the jar , one for the forager ,
one for the eve , one for the morrow
Traipsing gravel byways to the music of the rattling corn , ****** broomsage and the iron harrow
A whitewashed homestead wrapped in oak ,
mulberry , sycamore and crape myrtle ,
Songbirds of every shape and melodious -
occupation , alert geese crying from the -
hedgerows , waves of sorghum dancing in the -
shaded meadows ...
Mar 3, 2018
Mar 3, 2018 at 1:48 AM UTC