"hunkered" poems
The creature waits clenched.
It waits hunkered and steadfast
For the quintessential moment to
Dangle your pride and cut its
Throat where you can see it.
The creature waits fuming.
It waits - shadowed and drip-fed -
For the penny to drop from its height;
To pierce the soft body of calm
And let loose the mess.
The creature waits grinning.
It waits smug and hysterical
For the time and times before this
Where it beat down a smile by
Forcing the question:
What is wrong with me?
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 12:27 PM UTC
We're on a train
in London's subways
and everyone stands
with a dead-eye peer
down the carriage, so
please, hold my hand.
They're all like apes,
hung on bamboo poles
and strung vine-straps,
hunkered over the small
space I have to myself, so
please, hold my hand.
I think you've become
just like them, Daddy;
a ringed-eyed orangutan
or narrow-staring lemur.
You've become much less
human it scares me, so
please, let go of my hand.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
1.
There was the tremor of leaves,
a rustle of bayonet grass
parried the multihued calm
of dawn's smeared light.
"This is what we trained for," the captain said.
We hunkered behind stacked bags of sand.
2.
Filigreed shafts of light pierce
the bullet perforated leaf canopy,
bellowed yells punctuate the swirl
and buffet of turbulent air:
“Contact”, “2 O’Clock”, “Incoming”, “
"Moving”, “Reloading”, “Ammo”.
3.
Fingers twitch, the grit of soil
twisted through their grip;
moon slashed carcasses glint, spent shells,
Earth exhales a vermillion mist,
rising, echoless, in this cathedral of leaves.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 1:19 AM UTC
he had a third beer
before the hot platters came
he would have had another, had she not
stared, like she going to ask every question
he did not want to answer…
how did it feel to slap his first wife?
how did it feel to pull the trigger
and mow men down like so many weeds?
those were the questions in her eyes
and had he ever told anyone, what happened that night
when they came upon a village, where the young ones
slept with the dead, their ancestors
only a few feet away, watching, mute,
beyond the paddies where they planted the rice,
the narrow trails where they hunkered and spoke
the ancient tongue, not adulterated by the romance of the French
or the clumsy amalgam of shredded sounds from the new soldiers
the giants who ignored them in the steaming light of day
but came one night, bringing strange smells, oiled steel
muzzles pointed at their faces, shoved into their empty ears
grunting and groaning in an even more grotesque tongue
leaving tears and trembling in their wake,
the torn flesh, the wounded wombs, the silken vessels
meant to be there for the milky planting of tomorrow’s seeds
not the greedy groping of the interloper’s devilish deeds
was she asking about that night, the sounds he recalled
like puppies under heavy foot, or worse, like
the madding moaning of his own sister
when someone ripped her open
not in the distant killing fields
but in the back seat of her car
not two miles from where they sat
where he ordered more beer, and
she asked those questions with her silence,
with her eyes, the questions he would never answer
not after all the beer, in all the free world,
and he was pitifully glad
they served no sushi, in Kiki’s, though
the sharpened knives were there
ready for his confessional
and the raw slaughter of truth
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 2:43 AM UTC
A Cowboys Christmas
We've been making this run
For twenty odd years
On up to Kansas
To bring back some steers
This time weather came up
The wind started to blow
And as it got colder
We were buried by snow
We needed a place
Where we could get cover
We had to find somewhere
One way or the other
Christmas was coming
And we'd not back it home
We were out here all frozen
But, we were not alone
The wind it kept blowing
The snow piled high
We lost three cows in the night
They were destined to die
They were weak when we got them
The walk was too tough
When the weather moved in
Well, that was enough
We hunkered down round the fire
Kept it tended real good
We'd gone and collected
A supply of wood
Christmas was coming
And we'd be away
It's the lot of the cowboy
To be away Christmas Day
The snow it got deeper
And more cattle were lost
We were stuck going nowhere
And dead steer were the cost
We were all round the fire
When the sky opened wide
The clouds disappeared
They all moved to the side
There in the heavens
Was a shining bright star
I'm sure it was one
All could see from afar
It lit up the country
With a sparkling glow
All we could see
Were the steers, and the snow
It was then that we realized
That Christmas was here
We had just gone past midnight
And the sky was now clear
We dropped to our knees
Said a prayer to the Lord
We still had our lives
And our feelings just soared
We'd beaten the storm
And would be on our way
We would still not be home
On this Christmas Day
We slept for a while
Then we ate, hit the trail
We all now had
A new Christmas tale
Christmas had come
With not presents or fuss
It was Christmas regardless
Inside all of us
A cowboy spends Christmas
Where ever he might
Whether out on the job
Or at home for the night
Christmas is Christmas
Without trinkets or beads
It's a feeling inside
It is faith, that one needs
So this cowboys Christmas
Was spent moving the herd
Kneeling down in a snowdrift
And sharing the word
Sep 27, 2017
Sep 27, 2017 at 1:26 PM UTC
J R died
I guess many cried
J R Ewing, Larry Hagman,
son of Broadway’s Peter Pan
offspring of a famous clan
I guess a decent man
another J R died, Jenny Rae
I guess many cried
but not likely fans from afar
perhaps
her nephew in the corner bar
when he recalled
through his wine soaked haze
younger days, when his Jenny Rae
would meet him payday
and give him a five she earned
keepin’ those old folks alive
well, cleanin’ up their slop
may not have been keeping anybody alive
but she did it just the same
even long after the cancer came
and pain buckled her over on the bus,
she kept goin’
smiling at their ancient vacant stares
when she could
when she was gone
when she passed,
curled up like a baby in that noisy ER
there were no headlines about that J R
only another wretched woman
paid to clean up slop
who hunkered faithfully over her mop
to wipe up the remnants of Jenny Rae
to earn her pittance of pay
perhaps for another nephew
or other lost son of an angry day
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 1:11 PM UTC
It started with a goodbye.
It started with me wrapping up my past
in bubblewrap, as if it was fragile.
It was really so that its sharp edges would be
unable to hurt me anymore.
I decided it was better to leave it inside
my bedside table, next to the pictures and the letters.
Not to pack it in a suitcase
and bring it with me on my many travels.
But it refused to leave my side,
it followed me, like a paper plane
guided by my insecurities.
Like I was a holding up a neon sign that read
STILL HOLDING ON.
Perhaps it was a sign that I was to carry it with me
to all the places I hadn't been but longed to see.
People asked me about the big monster
that hunkered down beside me.
But how could I tell them that
I was caught up in something
I'd promised to leave behind?
How it has consumed my mind
my body, my very soul.
How it threatened to rip a hole
in the very future I was trying to protect.
Maybe I'm exaggerating
Maybe the time I spent hating every part of me
wasn't very long at all.
But it felt like an eternity
the summer, winter and fall.
Finally, spring arrived
With hopeful eyes and a big bright smile.
I shook myself awake from what was
starting to feel like a neverending nightmare,
A rabbit hole that wasn't taking me to Wonderland
I started to understand that I couldn't go on like this.
I took a hit or miss dive into the future,
And like a magician, unlocked the weights at my ankles.
Once at the shore, I looked at my past as it drowned
unwanted and forgotten,
And I realised I was no more a crinkled mess.
With wrinkled fingertips at the end of my hand,
I held up a mirror to my freshly washed face.
I smiled, digging my toes into the sand.
It ended with a hello.
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 2:13 PM UTC
Hips hunkered, rise to dapple-blue-toned dusty seat
Flush arch cheeky blush, excitement
Droll eye-glazing blue pupil toned in sleepy drug haze
Wind whipping wild air rushing through tempered glass
Wubing whoosh of wheeled blacktop pavement
Colored in eerie sunshade yellow
Lined, darting-flash gold white boundary crossing
Tight knuckles, two hand hold
Blinking brown doe-eyed drowsy heavy lidded
Lolling head knocked back, head bash rested caressing faux blue
Ploom of dust
Dry-mouth open to catching fly’s
Or what’s left of dank-infused air
Quiet stillness
Blond hair crawling in busy wind,
Equally as gone
Thumping, jolting-momentum
White line boundary lost, wheels ended grass
Ditching down, dirt slid slide
Floating weightless suspended-nightmare phase
Snapping,
Awake! Awake!
Screaming slotted terrified,
Panic! Painful-heart-wrecking rob breath
Nose dive, mounded metal drive inching closer
Hairs-breath away
Afraid, screaming ****** ****** inside sealed lips
Brown eyes; lid white
Hands upon steering slack, loose light
Asleep, peaceful in calamity
Unnatural shake and tumble
Nail dug bleeding ache
Skidding gravel, tree lined doom
A god not believed in a prayer ensued
Shaking, the calm unglued
“Baby, wake I beg you!”
Brown quick electric wide
Screaming, Screaming
“Oh my God! Why!”
Swerve snake skin peelout
Black lane orange in night
An almost death.
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 4:08 PM UTC
Remember when bullets bounced off our chests;
when a goose steppin hoard o' mad men held no sway,
thick eyebrowed men plotted plans hunkered in bunkers,
But we could lick the likes of Adolf
-- any day
Remember when bullets bounced off our chests;
when the Ayatollah lobbed fatwas at our ****
we could raise a middle digit - to the Eejit.
coz Rushdie was quite cusdie
-- what a farce.
Remember when bullets bounced off our chests;
Al Qaeda n the cowards planted bombs.
bin laden poked the eye of big bald eagle
was it legal; when he brought it home
-- to moms.
Remember when bullets bounced off our chests???
Sep 12, 2010
Sep 12, 2010 at 8:29 AM UTC
His name was Bing,
one eye grey the other blue
an Australian Cattle Dog
the best I ever knew.
Cows or Sheep he was the man.
Nipping at their heels, heading
them where you bid them go.
Smart as a whip, quick as a bullet,
Work all day for a pat on the head.
One early day no Bing appeared,
Strange 'cause he was always the first
into the truck bed, first in the pasture,
first to work, the last to quit.
We called out his name many times,
began a search, buildings to barns, silo
to shed. In the center of a cut hay field,
I saw him, hunkered down not moving.
The boss and me approached and called
to him, yet still, he did not seem to hear.
At twenty feet he stood up quick,
turned to face us with a ****
his eyes burned with hell's fire,
his muzzle and jowls were awash in foam,
his deep-throated growl a caution warned.
Not much doubt he'd been skunk bit,
was beyond redemption touched in rabies fit.
I was sent on the run to fetch
the long gun from the truck.
We approached him careful like,
I was still panting from my run.
The boss cocked the lever,
chambering a round into the gun.
Bing's eyes looked to be pleading,
as if to ask that we end his pain.
In his crazed anguished state,
he could have reached us in a flash
spread the contagion to our flesh,
yet through instinct or love
old Bing held his ground,
awaiting his inevitable fate.
I tried to swallow but had no spit,
and then the rifle thundered
and stung my ears,
One shot through the head
took old Bing's pain away.
The Boss, a hard-edged man of fifty
began to silently weep like a child of five,
the loss of his dog too much to abide.
I must admit my tears weren't far behind.
We bore him from the field
like an honored fallen warrior.
Buried him in the yard by the house,
He deserved that respect and more.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 5:25 PM UTC
There’s a wasp in the house
He snuck right on in
But I’m all alone
Wearing nothing but skin
Buzzing and humming
He moves lightning fast
He’s angry I’m sure
No need to ask
He needs to be caught
Or if not, then swatted
I wish I had foresight
Enough to have plotted
An action and course
For exactly this thing
But it did not occur
To me this morning
Now I know you might say
What about me
But you see that just simply
Won’t, and can’t be
For I’m hunkered On down
In the closet all snug
There is no way in hell
I’ll go near that **** bug
So here I will stay
With clothes all rolled up
Wedged in the crack
So the wasp can’t checkup
I gather reserves
Of brave that I’ve stashed
And face this mean wasp
No longer abashed
I gave him a stern talking
Told him what’s up
then demanded he crawl
In to my tea cup
Walked back to the door
And hear a loud “hey kid”
Then slowly it dawned
That I am still naked
I held my head high
As my skin flushed
A wasp in a teacup
A lady in the buff
I released him unharmed
Still on my task
Then turned right around
And smacked my own ***
To all of the neighbors
Staring at me
I ended with the most
Proper curtsy
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 1:08 AM UTC
At harbour’s entrance, a mile or more away
beyond high water, hunkered down
the old Quarantine station
on a flat patch of land
etched from the tangles of coastal heath.
The Barrack buildings besieged
by brooding sky and sea
and choking landscape – bush
thickets clambering the steep isthmus
backdrop of granite tor.
Chaotic angled peaks everywhere
indecisive stony sentinels
offering no certainty in the grey cloud
chiffonade of morning.
Slow, lingering clouds
wandering in confused circles
or passing over, casually
bringing squalls and showers.
Washing the pock-picked stone
to glistening newness of a palette
of fresh browns – tan, taupe, fox-brown
chestnut to black murky sludge
as if recently erupted
from earth’s muddy tender skin.
A cluster of cottages
a settlement of sorts with cannon ports
and flagpole and a fenced graveyard
still telling stories of pathos
pity and waste filling this place
with a strange, pressing silence
an atmospheric numbness felt
in dread and gravity.
© M.L.Emmett
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 8:21 AM UTC
Dropping it for the first time
lysergic acid diethylamide
there on
Pescadero's beach
with night hunkered down
in the dunes
We howled at the waves
of the wild Pacific
stamped our feet
on the dense moist sand
and miracles radiated outward
from each footfall
uncounted stars
galaxies somewhere deep
in that gritty sky
the sand alive
with phosphorescent life
Oh and we laughed
swore oaths to each other
spied the turbid moon
as if for
the first time
her hair in a mess
of wind-torn cloud
It was perfection by the sea
until
some wise old hippies
alerted us to our danger:
"The heat's in the parking lot, man."
Panic.
Crawling like drug-addled moon dogs
on our bellies
through the dunes
to find a near-empty
parking lot.
No heat.
No hippies.
Only the wan moonlight
vacant pavement.
And so in our glorious excess
to a sandstone cave
where a box of whispers
was found
and poetry invented.
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 3:18 PM UTC
Hunkered down
against tides and waves
they allow themselves
a certain satisfaction
Cold currents surge past,
bringing them all they need
shifting them not one jot
But in those currents
their own young course and swirl
adrift, alive,
gauntlet-running,
glorious
And the barnacles wonder
whether they may, perhaps,
be missing something.
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 3:47 PM UTC
The many deaths I have endured, I cannot even count.
My soul has dried and cracked,
hardened to the core.
My heart has bled dry,
shedding itself of all life.
My spirit has withered
into a small dry stump of nothing.
My courage has collapsed
and shed into a million pieces.
My will has fled and left me
feeling worthless and useless.
My joy has become no more
than a distant memory of better times.
These things, these drastic things, these horrible times!
I have made myself discouraged and downtrodden.
What can I do? What can I say? What things can I do?
These deaths, these dreary and antagonizing deaths!
My love of life has hunkered down in dismay and is crying.
My free spirit has fallen prey to heavy chains of doom.
And these many deaths I have succumbed to,
With no chance of recourse!
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 6:38 PM UTC
i cannot give you more than me
humble and hunkered down,
i'm just a mangled heart, split
down the middle and
viewing the world through this dichromatic lens
but also
in technicolor,
and you're wearing a dream coat,
so let's spatter every surface
with saturated pastels,
and i hope you can fold your angelwings around me
even though this is my self,
unmasked and to the marrow,
stripped and cored for you,
i am all that i am.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 7:49 PM UTC
Tomorrow is just today re-lived for Punxsutawney Phil.
It is odd to me that he is so very human, hunkered
low against the cold winds of winter's wrath until
finally, in celebration of Imbolc he rises to survey his vast
lands, a keen eye to the ground to scout out this years'
competition, even if it is only his shadow.
Phil's home in the burrow on Gobbler's **** is the
family sanctuary; there is a joke there but it is beyond
me, God. Just please keep us warm and brave, looking
to the sky instead of the ground, our shadows to our
backs where they will always belong.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 11:24 PM UTC
I forgot you were there, hiding
under winter's slow, grisly grip
only ten days into spring
you made your return, myriad mounds
pocking my pastures
dead center, in one of your proudest heaps,
I teased you with sweet pear, just to see your ranting red industry
though a tiny roach occupied half your tugging army, its only crimes
being live birth and waddling through your masses
I forgot you were there
hunkered in the wet, wormed soil
patient, until ninety and one degrees brought you
to the desiccating ground
you had not forgotten me, had you?
for you sent a special sentry from your brigades to find my foot,
and welt it with a welcome back kiss
in tomorrow‘s heat,
after the soldier’s scratching, martyred memory fades,
I will forget again, though winter
never does
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM UTC
If it were I, a hunkered mass
Of unkempt hair and tangled rags,
Lain prone beneath the underpass,
Enclaved in chattel bulked-out bags,
If it were I, alone, afraid,
Tight-bitten lips in silent prayer,
And listless eyes, all hope decayed,
And slumped, oppressed, done by despair,
And if you cast my shadowed shape,
Would you come seek my name?
Or look as I for quick escape,
And thence to bear my shame.
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 6:59 PM UTC
I
left
you
at the café while
you were in the water closet
I got on the bus,
handed the driver my last twenty
before I even asked where he was going
I saw you, through the café window
as the bus pulled away,
puffing diesel fumes
in its hissing wake
I saw you, side by side with
the gray reflection of a weathered Apache squaw
who
hunkered outside in the fading veil of smoke
like a mocking twin who shared the glass and light
with the young you,
white princess with ruby lips
a purse full of treasured trash
and words I did not want to hear
waiting to spill from your mouth
I had been gone two years in the flying fortresses
deafened by the din of their moaning motors,
our machine gun fire
and the nightmare fighters
sent to the blind skies to escort us to hell
I counted the desperate days
and the missions I had yet to fly
until my feet could finally touch ground
and my eyes could see the light of you
then your letters said less and less
and I no longer kept them
folded in my leather coat
two miles from earth,
like the parchment talisman
I once dreamed them to be
you had left me before
I left you, and I knew, but
‘twas easier to chew a quiet lie
than to swallow a screaming truth
I did wonder if you walked into the street,
if you asked the Mescalero lady
if she saw me leave
though I did not look back
once the bus passed Lordburg’s lone light
nor did I long for you any longer
in the dreadful night
Jun 13, 2013
Jun 13, 2013 at 2:43 AM UTC
Hunkered down we pass the plonk
We can see Madame and pay
We shake her hand and thank her
San fairy ann she'll say
Sergeant copped a blighty
He'll be on his way
He's thanking god almighty
San fairy ann I say
It's hard enough to smile through this
When folks get blown up every day
But all the while the whizz-bangs miss
San fairy ann we say
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 2:51 PM UTC
Within the window’s green and blue
The flame-tree’s scarlet flares like hate.
Its seed-embedded fruit pods grew
Black bats that were the summer’s bait.
Such neon-spiked display implies
Volcanic urge of savage lies
Just below the safe serene
Of seeming tranquil blue and green.
Upon the sign-post squints a crow
At every lurching butterfly,
His black eye shouts a mortal “no”
And never blinks or winks a why.
Search and seek to find this why
But never will you satisfy
The cat down-hunkered in the grass
For gentle blue birds, should they pass.
Apr 2, 2010
Apr 2, 2010 at 6:02 PM UTC
Talked to my recruiter
Felt it was my duty sir
Raised my hand said yes I can
Be a great American
Sent me off to boot camp
Sargent treated me like crap
Never got to thank his Mom
The one who raised this hellish son
Made me a man sent me to war
Not knowing what I'm fighting for
Traveled to Afghanistan
To **** some guy named Taliban
Now I'm hunkered in a ditch
Missing Momma's fish and grits
Planes are flying over head
Pretty soon we'll all be dead
All it is that I can say
I'm to young and dumb to die this way
Then I got a good report
They have no need for me no more
Landing on the tarmac
Hello America it's me I'm back
Greeted by my two best friends
Nodding Bob and Stutter Jim
Even got my old job back
Who would have ever thought of that
Still in service to my country
Behind the counter at Burger King
All I have to say in close
Would you like some fries with those...
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 9:12 AM UTC