"hickory" poems
I was a shirt filed with straw and rags.
Pants that hang loose. Jeans cuffed pinned uncomfortably.
Nothing to think of; a hat filled with straw.
The inability to walk. Pinned to a board.
Hickory oak.
Chest disproportionate to a small waist.
Sleeves flung in the wind.
Left standing still; a face motionless.
Pinned to hickory oak.
A shadow left in an empty field, the boundaries of a checkerboard shirt.
The insecurity of straw hands.
Pickett fences to the feet of crows,
Still she'd visit often.
Distance cut short by dark heavy wings.
She'd caw in my silence,
Not knowing the ability to smile I stood against purpose.
She refused to run, poking fun at my hat.
The clothes that hung loosely in the wind, scurf tied tightly around my neck.
Feeling her ***** the strings of my chest.
Strands of straw filled by her need to find a home.
Was there anything there at all before that moment.
Becoming shelter to the way she pried.
Mar 22, 2017
Mar 22, 2017 at 7:11 AM UTC
The Donald went down to Georgia
He was lookin' for a state to steal
He was angrily blind 'cause he was way behind
And he was lookin to make ah deal
When he came across this Q man
Sawin' on Twitter and layin' plots
And the Donald jumped upon a hickory stump
And said, "Q let me tell you what"
"I guess you didn't know it, but I'm a Twitter tweeter too
And if you'd care to take my fare, I'll Twitter follow you
Now you lay pretty good tweets, Q, but give the Donald his due
I'll bet a Tower of gold for your soul
'Cause I think your tweets are cool"
The Q said, "My game's phony, and it might be a sin
But I'll take your bet, you won't regret
'Cause my tweets'll ensure you win
Q, fire up your phone and type your Twitter hard
'Cause Hell's broke loose in Georgia and the Donald deals the cards
And if I win, you get this shiny Tower made of gold
But if you lose, the Donald gets your soul
The Donald opened up his cell and he said, "I'll start this show"
And fire flew from his thumb tips as he tweeted just for show
And he pulled his thoughts across word streams and he made a evil hiss
And a band of MAGAs joined in, and they tweeted somethin' like this
When the Donald finished
Q said, "Well, you're pretty good ol' Don
But sit down in that chair right there
And let me show you how tweet's done"
"Biden's in the Basement", run, boys, run
The Donald's in the Whitehouse having fun
Ivanka's in the West Wing makin' dough
Jared, do your thoughts bite? No, Don, no
The Donald bowed his head because he knew that Q could tweet
And he laid that golden Tower at the ground of Q's feet
Q said, "Donald, just don't concede if you ever wanna win again
I done tweeted you once, you son of a *****
Cuz my tweets will make you win" he played
"Biden's in the Basement", run, boys, run
The Donald's in the Whitehouse having fun
Ivanka's in the West Wing makin' dough
Jared, do your thoughts bite? No, Don, no
Dec 7, 2020
Dec 7, 2020 at 8:07 PM UTC
What can you say about Pennsylvania
in regard to New England except that
it is slightly less cold, and less rocky,
or rather that the rocks are different?
Redder, and gritty, and piled up here and there,
whether as glacial moraine or collapsed springhouse
is not easy to tell, so quickly
are human efforts bundled back into nature.
In fall, the trees turn yellower-
hard maple, hickory, and oak
give way to tulip poplar, black walnut,
and locust. The woods are overgrown
with wild-grape vines, and with greenbrier
spreading its low net of anxious small claws.
In warm November, the mulching forest floor
smells like a rotting animal.
A genial pulpiness, in short: the sky
is soft with haze and paper-gray
even as the sun shines, and the rain
falls soft on the shoulders of farmers
while the children keep on playing,
their heads of hair beaded like spider webs.
A deep-dyed blur softens the bleak cities
whose people palaver in prolonged vowels.
There is a secret here, some death-defying joke
the eyes, the knuckles, the bellies imply-
a suet of consolation fetched straight
from the slaughterhouse and hung out
for chickadees to peck in the lee of the spruce,
where the husks of sunflower seeds
and the peace-signs of bird feet crowd
the snow that barely masks the still-green grass.
I knew that secret once, and have forgotten.
The death-defying secret-it rises
toward me like a dog's gaze, loving
but bewildered. When winter sits cold and black
slumped between its two polluted rivers,
warmth's shadow leans close to the wall
and gets the cement to deliver a kiss.
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When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale ***
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of *******
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.
When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!
When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.
Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!
5.3k
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale ***
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of *******
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.
When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!
When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.
Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!
4.9k
The time in my youth that taught me about true peace
Was fishing with my Papa on the coast of the East
We'd get up in the morning before sunrise
Papa would wake me with sparkle in his eyes
I'd jump down from the bunk bed
When my feet hit the floor Smells of
Grandma's hickory bacon would rush to my head
She would wrap the bacon up in a biscuit and pack it to go
I'd grab the bag of bread crumbs we'd been saving
for the seagulls, to strew
We'd pile it all in the SUV
The poles clasped firm on the front bumper
Papa's clever bumper holder made of PVC
I can smell the salt air so clear
Papa and Grandma are always with me
Ahh, that is true tranquility!!!
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 10:56 AM UTC
hickory nuts
and wind trees
are keeping
at the old buckle bay
light house corners and
shaker church craft
slip anchor on the southern tip
secret legions
and phenolic board
tuck in at gout dock
bands and nations
and miracle speak
fill in the center hall
sand hooks
and water domes
cover wharf road
***** bay toppers
and seven horse chugs
scatter the swollen upper deck
packards and pushers
and rusty back rails
skirt the night
lanterns and sterns
and navy gulls
steady on task
sand cakes
and drift wood
held tight on
the mystery tour
yellow tails
and tide pools
flat line
at royal reach
paddles
and cables
find ripples way
smugglers and smitties
take cover
from a
northern gale
down on
pocket shoal
there’s a graceful hue
~ they’re serving up
belons and xan…
it's time to get in
for a fill
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 2:12 PM UTC
Peculiar
Agreed?
How ******** clad lassies
Get the pass to show their ***
Long as nobody touches
Jiving gyrations
In counter-clockwise rotation
Seldom unescorted by damnation
By God, sense the relation
She's losing her patience
Can't afford to be a patient
So being patient...
That **** is ancient
Swanging ******* before eyes
Eyes that can't see
Eyes blind by the fuckery
***** get hickory
And the tic tickory of the clock
Stops
Drop drop
Shake that body for the coin
Make those men yearn to join
Their meat to your groin
Blind men throw out the presidents
Nixon Jackson Benjamin
Facts is
That these hoes stay cashing in
More than ****** busting traps
And toting gats to make stacks
Peculiar
Agreed?
How a ***** sell and smoke ****
High off they own supply
Baby mamas multiply
Covered all the **** by a lie
Making these young girls cry
And the innocent have to die
For this boy to strive
When you mad at the *** clap
Fat *** on a mans lap
Slow wine then fast
Slow grinding for cash
But no harm is caused
No obstruction of laws
But men be a "Boss"
& a woman... A loss
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 1:47 AM UTC
A satisfied appetite is a simply joy
Overlooked and simplified
Like a growing urge, a salivating need
That is entrancing and glorified.
Everlasting for moments we call meals
Forgotten in time, lingering above
But the taste, the lonesome lover pushed aside
Gazes afar and near wanting to be enjoyed again
The young lady with a tongue of raspberry delight
And the matured widow with darkened cacao lips
Ripening nectar of a sliced peach center
Halved and topped with mascarpone crème
The man with a skin of caramel glaze
Caressing and savoring
With a fragrance and scent
Of hazelnut coffee indulgence and sin
In the pursuit of a brief love affair
What oral sensation did my taste buds want?
My odyssey of gustatory endeavors await
Through the seas of lined people and waiting staff
Generous portions and humble pies
Decadent desserts so rich you’ll die
Vine cherry tomatoes sliced and sauté
Over al dente rigatoni in a roasted cashew sauce
A robust aroma and savory appeal
Basil leaves with garlic strips
Olive oil to top the surreal
Hubristic meatball aborigine
Elysian cuisine or many dreams
Teasing the senses, warming the pit
Of flowing pleasures
And tingling fingertips
Without moral measures
And succulent wines
Rotisserie lamb falling of the bone
Seasoned with Sicilian herbs
And paired with broiled asparagus
Drizzled with lemon juice
And a glass of Merlot
Spices I hardly know
Lachrymose apologies beside a bottle of faded sorrows
With love there is pain, passion endured through the names
Thin soups, flavorless and dull, feeding street-thrown bums
Breathing hard against the delicatessen glass
Hickory smoked hams, pepper-seasoned pastrami
Vinegar cultured pickles and hard dried salami
Unpleasured, without measure, at one's leisure.
Forever my endeavor
Blackcurrant tea laced with slivers of gooping honey
Layers of cinnamon hair atop olive skin
red-painted doors with cedar trim
crushed almonds mixed with hazelnut butter cream spread
devilish rounds of crumbling rum-swirl bread
Smells and wonders, tastes so ...
oh god
Divine and sublime.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
short legs
patched jeans
kicking leaves
piled to my knees
remembering color
living in sea salt pines
leaves little to imagine
of autumn rhymes
sweetgum sourwood birch
sycamore and dogwood
apple leaves beneath the plum tree
ash hickory maple and oak
mountains afire in Tennessee
eyes closed
smell of smoke-
kicking leaves
to the wind.
r ~ 9/16/14
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 10:47 AM UTC
"I KNEW a real man once," says Agatha in the splendor of a shagbark hickory tree.
Did a man touch his lips to Agatha? Did a man hold her in his arms? Did a man only look at her and pass by?
Agatha, far past forty in a splendor of remembrance, says, "I knew a real man once."
2.9k
Tell me where to draw the line in the sand
Between being a brother
And being a father figure
Sands of times
Life lines are drawn with a big stick
Theodore Roosevelt is smiling on a young all american clueless teenager turned young soldier worrying about things no others should struggle with
A 16 year old dealing with social rejection and seclusion
A 13 year old trying to find where holding hands stops and tongues meet
A 7 year old who has migranes daily from a father who never was
I can't drawn straight lines
A rocking chair watches the tides wash away a single phrase
Help
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 10:41 PM UTC
Hickory dickory dock
Our phones are now our clocks
Digital has won
Analog's died out
Hickory dickory dock
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 5:18 AM UTC
Let's see here, you are as sweet as a vidalia onion,
as pretty as that bass down in Waldrop Creek,( been meaning to catch
him for awhile, I bet he's at least eight to nine pounds or..)
sorry, where was I ? Yes you are so pretty.
You are smooth as Mr Sims backyard whiskey and I might
add just as hard to control.
Your hair smells like a thousand tea ivory , so silky to hold.
You make me get all funny tied up inside, kind of
like that time they all dared me to jump from Hickory Knoll
into the water, what was I thinking? Jumped anyways.
Aint saying I can tell you just like that Shakepearing fellow
just how I feel,
but I sure would have you if you will have me!
Apr 12, 2012
Apr 12, 2012 at 7:02 PM UTC
Calabash Squash
A Poem by Eclipsing Moon-blood red
entry for a contest...rhythm
Hip- hop jury swapped
Hippity- hoppity sequestered they stop
Bibity- bobity alone on the cobblestone.
falling in- falling over
The balcone wailing, and buckets pailing, and hailing, and
Scaling
The walls and ramparts the cannons were whaling
Moby dicking and schlicking the schlock of the clock… hickory dickery ..where is the Doc?
Blind mice made the move..up one "grandfather side.
... and
Over the top .
Now wasn’t that a quainty dish to set before the Queens …
in drag
© 2011 Eclipsing Moon-blood red
Sep 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011 at 4:04 PM UTC
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp'
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the ****** British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a coming
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to running
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We looked down the river and we seen the British come
And there must have been a hundred of them beating on the drums
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing
Old Hickory said we could take 'em by suprise
If we didn't fire a musket 'til we looked 'em in the eyes
We held our fire 'til we seen their faces well
We opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em
Well they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down
Then we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
Euphony * the quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious combination of words; making a phonetic change for ease of pronunciation
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory, dickory, dock
Trickery, diddly, rot,
This Diddy's life poems rhymed not,
The boys and girls all booed,
Your poetic life thumbs-down *******
Trickery, diddly, rot
sipped his morning coffee.
thoughts about mortality and mean
saw what wanted not to be, the unseen,
trickery, diddly, rot,
brain refrain, relief not,
the **** clock ticking,
the mouse laughing,
at his euphonious nonsense
he wept for being found out,
the noises in the house
joined in
all mocking with accusations
***you phony, us,
you, phony us***
another work day ended as it begun,
or began to end
teach felt
herself
for felt
tipped pen reach,
inky dinky in the dockers it flowed,
now I am red-tro-graded,
bold letter, no fading,
F
for failing
to phony us
slipped his head under the water,
but the words auditory
and most un laudatory
feared not a drownery,
followed him down
under
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 7:03 AM UTC
I came back in Spring
To see my garden had grew
With beautiful, magical flowers
Growing all over the place
Bluebells on either side
Of the garden path
Dark red Taboo roses
Of heavenly crimson
Climb the abandoned house
Wisteria a moonlight purple
Wraps it's vines around
The tall, majestic trees
Daisies grow beside the ferns
Such a lovely, living bouquet
Violas are growing
Underneath the hickory tree
Other flowers, too many to name
Are growing in my garden
They waltz in the heavenly scented breezes
My garden I remember
Planting with care
Toiling away all day long
Now rewarded for my prime of life
Striving to get those seeds planted
Now I have been well rewarded
With those treasured-cherished blooms
That I water each and every day
In my acorn watering buckets
That I use just for watering
My magical flowers
Growing silently
Secretly hidden
In my enchanted
Beautiful secret garden
That I so diligently
Planted with great care
Now they are growing
And I am very happy
Just to see them
Nodding and swaying
Some sweet dance
In the warm golden
Honeyed sunlight
Slanting across the
Whole wide world
And now my own
Little world is rich
With pure ecstasy
In happy golden moments
I can always come here
And think back
While silent memories return
And an orchestra of birds sing
In my own sweet garden
Where the fairies dwell
And keep me company
When I am lonely
And need a friend
My garden shall remain
Until the day when it
Shall wither and die
~Marian~
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 9:23 PM UTC
LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.
They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.
Let 'em hawk their caw and caw.
Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.
He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years
And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head.
Let his red head drum and drum.
Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass.
And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places.
Let the redwing streak a line of vermillion on the green wood lines.
And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman's shawl on lazy shoulders.
2k
Tick-tock tick-tock goes the clock tick tock tick tock what the ****
Tick tock tick tock goes the clock I'm going to trip I'm going to fall down the staircase to wonderland.
Tick-tock tick-tock that clock just won't ******* stop
Tick tock tick tock, knock, knock, hatter hatter open up it's me.
Tick-tock tick-tock the times a ticking, knock knock knock Hatter please the walls are going to get me.
He hee hee they wanna play he hee hee I think they're coming to get me.
Queen, the queen she screams he hee hee she still laughing at me.
Tick-tock tick-tock Hadder please I need to speak with you about the teatime tray please let us not play this little game,
Hatter, password what's the password tick-tock tick-tock hatter Please the clocks ticking.
The walls the walls are breathing again tick-tock tick-tock hatter I need you now I'm begging you,
the queen, the queen she's going to get me.
Tick tock tick-tock hatter ******* free me, I can't take anymore this tick-tock tick-tock ********
the mouse, the mouse is running up the clock tick tock tick tock the clock struck one. Hickory dickory dock let me out of this ******* clock
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 9:24 PM UTC
DO you know how the dream looms? how if summer misses one of us the two of us miss summer-
Summer when the lungs of the earth take a long breath for the change to low contralto singing mornings when the green corn leaves first break through the black loam-
And another long breath for the silver soprano melody of the moon songs in the light nights when the earth is lighter than a feather, the iron mountains lighter than a goose down-
So I shall look for you in the light nights then, in the laughter of slats of silver under a hill hickory.
In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the imitations of slow sea water on the shingle silver in the wind-
I shall look for you.
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