"gnats" poems
Winter is cold-hearted,
Spring is yea and nay,
Autumn is a weathercock
Blown every way:
Summer days for me
When every leaf is on its tree;
When Robin's not a beggar,
And Jenny Wren's a bride,
And larks hang singing, singing, singing,
Over the wheat-fields wide,
And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
Swings from side to side,
And blue-black beetles transact business,
And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
That no time be lost,
And moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive.
Before green apples blush,
Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
Is worth a month in town;
Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
That days drone elsewhere.
19.4k
Two ****** loving each . . .
In lieu of gnats and peacocks,
. . . Pathetic poetasters.
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 11:39 PM UTC
i would like a pizza topped with cheese
then sprinkled with some gnats or fleas
some centipedes and slimy slugs
and other creepy, crawly bugs
i want to add some fingernails
and oyster ooze and crunchy snails
and chicken bones and spoiled meat
and smelly socks from ***** feed
i want it topped with lots of mold
and gooey boogers that's not too old
a lot of snot, a little spit,
and guts with grainy grit
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 8:30 AM UTC
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn
bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-
black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.
The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus
each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,
as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.
And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,
or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.
And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun
hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
4.7k
Seeking a Dragon:
“Has anyone ever seen, a lizard who licks the air, smells the sounds, hears the tasty gnats flying ‘round and knows the instincts of his prey while holding fast his scaly-green statue on a hot summer’s day with his eyes like pinholes straight to hell, his hunger an anxious frantic swell he quickly darts after his dinner devouring that faithless sinner?” *
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 12:20 PM UTC
Folded pieces of paper.
Old past due assignments.
Made paper footballs with-
Corners pointed like diamonds.
Spent all that time.
Scooping out room for-
You in my heart.
Like guts of a pumpkin.
Stay close to you I tried.
But the pumpkin got rotten.
Corners got bent.
And my company unwanted.
A couple of cans of root beer.
Sitting along my windowsill.
Sitting still, lukewarm and flat.
Dragging in gnats.
I remade my bed.
Cleared off the pillows-
I pretended were you-
And made room for two.
I took down the pictures.
I took down the lights.
Took down some notes on-
How to resist my-
Need to be loved and-
My want to be fine.
My urge to move forward and-
Hunger to fight.
I get lost in the right-
Ideas and go wrong.
I hope that you don't think-
That I belong here.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
Many thousand glittering motes
Crowd forward greedily together
In trembling circles.
Extravagantly carousing away
For a whole hour rapidly vanishing,
They rave, delirious, a shrill whir,
Shivering with joy against death.
While kingdoms, sunk into ruin,
Whose thrones, heavy with gold, instantly scattered
Into night and legend, without leaving a trace,
Have never known so fierce a dancing.
3.3k
i killed a gnat on my shirt today
and now he sits there dead
next to a hole
which is starting to look
more and more
like his twin brother.
both black spots reminding me
of the ***** dishes and laundry
and the difference between dogs
in the city and country.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 11:27 PM UTC
I see them in the evening
echolocate after gnats
as they dart and dive for micro-prey
our night sky is alive with bats.
They clear away mosquitoes
never seeming to alight
and make it safer here below
these tireless workers of the night
I am fearful for their future
as we use our toxic sprays
for as we spray mosquitoes
we poison those who call them prey
Still the acrobatics thrill me
in their nightly hunt for gnats
and I hope for many years to come
our nights will be alive with bats
Cori MacNaughton
(July/Aug?) 1999
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 1:37 AM UTC
I-AM-NOT-A-DOG.
Today,
I cut loose from your leash of degrading comments.
My ears have learned to ignore your whistles
and the only thing I am going to fetch
is my dignity.
We all have cracks.
People’s words creep into our most foreign parts
And bother us like gnats in our food.
However,
At a young age my mom welded me by hand.
Sealed off every corner so
Your undignified vernacular wouldn’t disturb my peace.
Your mother must’ve had deleterious effects on you.
She told you that love can only be found through intertwining genitals.
I have iron fists and your forcefulness will not supersede my strength to protect what I own.
Let me tell you sir,
Obeying men is an archaic practice
And I wasn’t born yesterday.
I endure life with fortitude even with the threat of your loaded fist 2 inches from my face.
Your catcalls sting like the hearts of mother’s who have lost their daughter’s to the streets.
I hold my mace like a loaded gun walking in the petrifying night.
Apparently big butts lie, they give you the impression that you can squeeze, but back off the anatomy.
Remember that all women embody beauty and grace, not for you, but for themselves.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 11:33 PM UTC
Forsythias flower now,
A shock of yellow petals
Matching my Daffodils.
Pure yellow,
Brighter than the sun.
Galaxies of petal-stars
Hanging from spiral arms.
As numerous as a shoal of fish,
Or flock of birds.
Nature stuns us with its numbers.
Winter hangs on
With chilling grip.
But blossoms like these hold promise
Of warmer days.
My crocuses were first:
Defiant spears thrusting into the frosty air.
And now the second wave is here:
Flower after flower,
Bird after bird:
Robins and Blue ****
Blackbirds and Sparrows.
Pesky gnats are out
As everything awakes
From hibernation.
Yes Spring is here,
Showing us once more
The sheer resilience of Life.
Paul Butters
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC
Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites as dawn alights and daytime's crystalline.
A migrant feeds on rotting seeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.
Jul 3, 2013
Jul 3, 2013 at 4:14 PM UTC
days crawl by
and humidity stills the air.
the black flies are late this season,
though around here, most things are.
below the gnat line, girls like me
seldom get to die easily,
perfumed powders
masking the scent of illness,
flushed cheeks and damp foreheads donned
as our feeble bodies recline on fainting couches
to delicately languish away. we know that
there’s a certain beauty to decomposition,
to fungus gnats invading potted soil,
to fruit flies nesting in sink drains. we know that
rotting is a clock that never stops,
tallying each unflinching, humid second while the
days crawl by.
Jun 22, 2023
Jun 22, 2023 at 8:04 PM UTC
There are orca whales in my ears
but only when it rains
ill swallow the gnats to feed
the bellies and the growing fears
I never know how to greet it
I took the nail filer and carved
two perfect holes directly above my big toes
you can never be too careful
I wanted to make sure my feet knew that sometimes
things happen
I promised my umbrella that if
it could wait another couple weeks
I wouldn't rip it to shreds myself
why is there patience for quitters and
people who hate thunderstorms?
There are orca whales in my ears
but only when it rains
Gave into the cooped clouds,
let them smear cleaner through my roots
swaying instead to dodge the drip
and heaving sighs
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 10:51 AM UTC
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
2.4k
The mine shaft’s gaping mouth
yawns like the throat of an old, useless god.
Gnats hover by the scattered rocks.
This is real not a set, or a scene,
a spit of dirt shot through the sluice, all things like
a picture cut to kiss my America expectation.
In the surrounding bush, tamaracks curve towards the clouds.
The clouds where, above the furry tips of conifers, cataracts
plummet down mountainwalls, and ask:
“afraid?” And I am, I am. I fear the sheer
slopes of tough granite slashing the giant sky
in two; the hard-edged mountain face. The expansive air.
And this split is brooding old and unknowable
tunneling briskly into the unfamiliar, bruising
Montana a grisly purple-red
when the sun swings underground
and shades the hot **** by the mine with cool night as
behind it, the mine appears to growl.
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:09 PM UTC
firespray
vagrant pines
little black gnats more plentiful
than stars to empty sky
reach. catch a flame.
sprawling for the day
when fire breathes its own life
not the wood I pile,
lay down
to rest
I lie here
will die here
and it is well with my soul
because on occasion there is beauty
in all that simply is
Aug 13, 2019
Aug 13, 2019 at 10:34 PM UTC
it was time to sow the seed,
stitch the old me
to the present me,
and breathe,
release
all this anxiety,
tension tightening
the grip, strapped around
my throat,
around my hopes,
the me I've missed,
burn white candles,
lay out my stones,
rewrite the misery,
untie the history,
reach closer
to the underbelly's guise, mystery,
why I've lived
through the eyes of others,
flies, gnats,
and dead meat,
there is no me there,
just blurred scribbles,
hopes for sunshine,
trying to be
something realer
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 1:32 AM UTC
poisoned well of the antichrist littered with ground cover
picking out ****** flecks of gravel
blacktop kneeskin
patience pieces of scattered space time
to go back to the future of continuity
lack of genius ingenuity
and the suckling of the pig entourage
riding in a flat top hatchback
cadillac of the daily grind
upperclassman japan onii-chan
brother in arms from anotha motha
hug from afar colliding with crackpot theory
terrible fantasia cooling bricks in soggy sun
swallowed his pride with a glass of self-worth
and these ***** don't cook like they used to
I don't look like I used to
warped veil of camouflage chameleon leather
with a ****** level of automobile salesman
tried to get closer to god
ground him up, picked out the stems
twisted him into thin paper
touched flame to his finger tip and a son of Adam was born
gum shoe gaze
or the emptiness felt at the end of reasonable doubt
correctional text messaging system
sent from hoarse corpses
tenderly poignant in their ****** coffins
will think for food
cries from an outdated MENSA
over ***** and under-appreciated
siting on hunched shoulders to get a better look
to be a martian in a plain port
wharf warehouse whaling boat
red tide in a Shanghai **********
floodgates made of bitter premise
that last bit of purple yam
**** Okonkwo
Things Fall Apart fell apart due to faded highschool ambitions and bloodshot eyes
cruel like the shade of off-cerulean
champagne fizz tickles at the soft meat of his tarnished throat
and silver tongue
as the matchstick framework
so fragile in comparison
fizzles out on drenched sidewalk
while cigarette ash floats by
like gray gnats
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 4:03 PM UTC
"Don't leave out the graphic details."
Oh, trust me. I won't.
The gruesome, disturbing, intimacies.
The bone-chilling, hair-raising fragments.
It's almost too much to bear.
But not quite.
This vulgarity is just enough to keep them on the edge of their seats.
Every tiny, twisted moral of the story.
In between the cracks, find shining slivers of redemption.
Only to immediately cover them up with rotten deception.
Good, ***** flair. Scummy additions. Sick annotations.
Keep the masses rollin' in.
Complexity, concentration, then chaos when they want more fear.
The blood-curdling, stomach-churning truths.
The disgraceful, distasteful deductions.
We've come to the conclusion they crave this coagulation of ****
Dark disdain eating away at the corpse of wellness.
Vermin, pests, gnawing, slobbering.
Choking on the bones of prosperity.
The decomposition of this life is what they love.
Flies, gnats, swarm. Maggots clump.
Crack, rip, slurp, gag, choke, ******* die.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 6:57 PM UTC
my eyes opened to find
the thin lizard dawn gleaming
after the gutter drank its' fill
of the moon last night
the tambourine
buried in my lungs still
vibrating like these walls
papered with cheap roses
last night i found comfort the
only way i know how
in situations like this
beside a girl wearing
a pretty ribbon
twisted around her waist
pomegranate lipstick
wet clay & tragic glitter
smeared across her eyelids
we spent the night
roped together by
half-removed clothing
& my fingers third
knuckle deep
counting the pulse
of the heart
of the universe
while the wild fox
barked on the hill outside
& the mockingbirds
played riffs in the lilac bushes
her ******* ran tight
around her shins &
she sputtered the dark
lyricism of bees
twisting her tongue
backwards around
itself in my ear
our bare bellies
slapped together as
my tongue found her
tooth enamel &
the trees formed
a tight center loop to
harness the sky
for us & i
held my breath
waiting for her
to breathe first
i can feel her chest
& plump **** now
quietly throbbing
against the tight young
flesh of my back but when
i roll over & see her
eyes darting
green like a thin
ocean laser avoiding
my dynamic gaze &
her pouty mouth emitting
a pink yawn i can tell
she's unhappy & ashamed
of me
i tried to run
my fingers through
the butterscotch tumbleweed
of her hair but she just
popped her gum
& sent me
high stepping through
the soft warm mud
& chest high cattails
of her driveway
callow under the clouds
stuck like gnats to
the fly paper sky
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 3:58 PM UTC
Jigsaw puzzle of greenery, the trees
Nestle next to each in the
slicing sideways light of sunset.
The yard in the back is filled with it,
Filled with the late late summer side slant
of sun,
The plastic Adirondack chairs, left, as we left them,
Me, looking at you, maybe my feet
in your lap...
No, it wasn’t us that set them ajar.
The one time we sat there, your discomfort
Grated on my tranquil storybook
Vision, of us sitting
in the sun,
Drinking,
The Wine,
so we went inside.
Now I see them, those pretend plastic,
Pale blue, light blue to match
The house,
chairs of ease,
One chair looking at the other, while
the other stares off into
Space.
We meant to build a fire that
Summer, a fire pit
evening of
Romance.
But, I saw your dis-ease.
Was it the heat? The drone
of the bugs?
The chance of a gnat,
Landing in your
drink?
Or was it,…something
Different.
Something not found
in the sideways slant of
cooling air.
Was it, something
else, off
in that horizon,
Blocked
by the pale blue, the light
Blue house.
Something,
cutting your sight
Off
from the road.
It must have been, because, you said
Goodbye, several times
That summer. A nod, a
kiss, and you were
Off,
in your mind,
because you never
left, but sat in your uncomfortable
Sadness of not
Belonging here, or
Where you thought;
Wistful plans set, a
Blaze, not by
Midnight cords of wood
in a pile among the
Rocks,
Set ablaze by whimsy,
A promise, not
Promise.
So, we sat that summer,
and watched the flowers in the
pots bloom,
and the rains carry one
away,
And the gnats gnatting
as gnats do,
Cannon balling into pinot,
taking up
Residence, in that
Pale blue, light blue
house
With plastic mountain
Chairs
On the lawn.
Those chairs,
Those, Adirondack chairs
Still sit, still sit askew, still
sit, in the slanting light,
Still sit, waiting,
as I do,
For a time
Things, will be right
with the
World.
We must get, to
the other side, of
That Summer.
Let the snow pile high,
on those Chairs,
Get to, the whimsy, and
the Promise.
Watch down the
road, for a time to
travel, and not sit,
in uncomfortable
Sadness,
Askew in plastic
Chairs.
Feb 23, 2021
Feb 23, 2021 at 2:28 PM UTC
To these Babylonians
Oh father, and I am a child of Abraham
Daughter of salt and desert
Daughter of the sun blazed beige dream mountains
Who roll together like sleeping dinosaurs
In the archives of my memory.
To these Babylonians
And I have withheld from them my true name
For their tongues are not fit to pronounce it
Written in black stardust across my ankle
Branded like the wandering sheep
In the blue hills drowning in yellow gnats and cloud.
My father taught me how to survive
Babylonia
By the seaside the shore was covered in
Transparent jellyfish and dark ocean weeds
Abraham inhaling foamy salt waves
Preaching black oil, blood and fire
Preaching this, Babylonia
When foreign lands resemble home
When homes revert to foreign land.
When earth and sky and water do not remember you
When you do not remember them
Singing still in the salty undertow
Treble clefs caked in the cracks of my bones
Barefoot fire altar, sticky sunbeam fractures
Progeny of Abraham
Singing sacrifice
Stolen seconds folding themselves into eternity.
To these Babylonians
And I am a child of Isaac
Violin strings shouting with the river
Jacob whispered all rivers and all rivers
Flow to Rome
And all salt water tastes of home
Find me in the poison current of the obsidian ocean
Jellyfish seaweed and petroleum-slurred sands
My father Abraham sang many songs.
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 5:17 PM UTC
The night falls swiftly,
And yellow flashes
Of northeastern
Fireflies mark
The edges
Of the
Hedge-lined path,
And gnats
Hang in the air
Like suspended gravel
While my flats
Slap the pavement
Like a ****** rap gavel,
In repetition so
Soothing I forget
My sentence
And all that I'm losing,
And everything makes sense,
I feel connected
To the heron
Gliding above
The river
Like messenger
Pigeons follow
The street grid,
Or like a charge down
The neural pathway
That makes me grin
When I realize
I'm not defined
By what's within,
No more
And no less
Than the wilderness
Can be constrained
To the way the wind
Sings its wearisome
Twilight refrain
As the air moves
And spins
Through the spaces
Between the wooden
Masses atop
Parnassus,
I feel the humidity
Flee,
And my breath quickens
As Corycian nymphs
And the nine
Sacred women
Of creation
By man's mind
Surround me and drive
Me to place one
Ancient foot
In front of its partner,
The images they conjure
Like a Reckoner diamond
Encasing me
In a cage of
Liquid iron
While beckoning
Me forward
With 72 hymens,
But I know it's a lie,
I know why
Men fight and die,
And it's not for any
Contrived diatribe
Promoting an
Unattainable
Ultimate prize,
It's to give rise
To the feeling
Of being alive,
That's all we want,
That's all we strive
To find,
And that's why
I'm approaching
Mile five,
And breathing
The life
Inherent in night
With the scent
Of the soundscape
Still burned in
My sight.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 10:59 PM UTC
I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
III
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
1.9k