"ivy" poems
Leg off the table
you red face recruit!
put on the offensive
and break down
the bolted door!
you are the soul saver
the peddle maker
the calibrator
with colored handbills
and front line
rhetoric
join the masquerade
in ivy league style!
politicking with
cunning guile
invisalign smile
blackened vile
bleeding the funnel
with gold plate omega
and crocodile shoes
get on stage
and dance you fool!
you are the headline maker
the pantomime juggler
the compromised closer
pull out that 5 page review
(bullet points only please)
and polish those weathered lines!
did you give it your all?
the door tags
and pleasantries
the tidings
and clippings
the irrevocable claims
and postured blames
all those impressionable basics
put to the test?
you know the call
(straight from
those cold academics)
the pie chart gurus
and contract killers
(complete with bone in finger)
whipping their
frenzied crew
in an all night
charade
old yellar
and the gatekeeper
sure seem amused
(sharpening their inquest
behind closed doors)
firing up the shiit storm
with those hostile priicks
and a slew
of insatiable
cures
there’s laughter from the back room
the dripping nose
and wavering hand
the cut white lines
and checkpoint tales
the pipeline romance
and lacking form
(of a basic essential
character!)
soundboard
and narratives
for logging time
slouching on the
steel case
over moot points
ready to play
the 3 weight
butter card
(if need be)
might I remind you
it’s only an inquiry
(with a slight hint of concern!)
surely no
malfeasance
or deception intended
so step back from
the melt down
and cut to the chase!
headlines to breadlines
penthouse to outhouse
those immoral pursuits
have taken their toll
(haven’t they?)
madman or rogue
(you take your pick)
for the scores
and tabulations
are final
shame on you
for the foul play
the bold hypocrisy
and order desk games
the back stabbing blames
and spurious names
just sign on the dotted line ~
this banter
is killing me
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 1:12 PM UTC
So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.
Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.
And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.
Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.
Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.
The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.
Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.
But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.
I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.
27.2k
Sunday sermons are spilling on the inner city streets
through the green heaps and brown bags
through the downtown whisperers
and sage solitude souls
Army bands prepare for march
(their trench members filling packs with canister and cane)
the high command and tricked militia head pinned
quick on the look for splinter, lorry and skuttle
Traffic patterns change at the COP connect
camouflage bearers break formal stride
battle men slip between colorful floats
unsuspecting slumlords (vein pricked and weary)
grin in their second suite dying rooms
Twitching men and rubbernecks
sit discreetly on the corner wall
JJ and the chief revere a 21 gun salute
holy rollers raise cheer (in a moment of silence)
chess men hold steady
with ivory cues
Flames belt from the distant foundry
streets come alive with crackle and dust
members of the attic group glance down from their perch
an elderly man in a straight jacket (happy in the now)
sits solemnly with a cold reflective stare
It’s not far from the steely mud holes
from the flying fragments and sharp broken dreams
from the arsenal digs and madmen (who quietly turned the *****
the ivy trellis
and flowing white gown
are a nocturne fit
for this elevated rolling highland
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 8:33 PM UTC
A small clearing surrounded by trees,
Everything is bright and vibrant.
A crisp breeze blowing,
Swaying the grass.
The ground is covered by rocks
Of various shapes, colors, and sizes.
Bladed grass and ivy-like plants
Growing in the cracks of the stones.
A small white butterfly fluttering about,
So full of beauty and life:
Like the sweet-smelling flowers,
So simple with a fragrance of purity.
A soft breeze blows rustling the leaves,
Seeming to shush the world.
All is still, obeying the command,
And all around is at peace.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 11:12 PM UTC
My childhood was sunshine,
summer days,
pool,
book,
trees,
It was yellow dandelion, carpet lawn
and endless blue and green
as far as I could see
standing on my tiptoes
on a swing in the backyard
jumping down onto smooth soft summer grass
in the flat calm ivy-colored sea
It was stars on the night sky
like stars on my ceiling,
hair floating up around me with my dreams,
pulling me out the open window
into air,
into indigo,
into midnight blue, nail-polish painted sky
on the sweet-smelling cedar easel,
in the dark room,
where I come sometimes
to touch the beginning with butterfly-soft fingers
My childhood was hide and seek,
shut up in closets,
smiling,
laughing,
giggling,
yelling tag you’re it,
as it touched board game movers
and pushed them
one
two
three
around boards colored like rainbows
that I rode around the world
and into the universe
Now my childhood is two yellow foam blocks
asking me,
“Why?”
“Where?”
but I don’t know why it’s gone
or where it’s gone to,
all I know is that I’m not ready,
but here I come
Mar 28, 2017
Mar 28, 2017 at 12:51 AM UTC
On my skin I wear the bands of shielded sun.
Commitment to the heart makes this skin colour run.
With one liberal hand, I tear down these branches being hung,
to shower in yellowed leaf confetti.
These forest roots ran like hair line skull fractures,
under canopies blooming red from the sunlight rapture
and now these trees leave their taller brothers to fall as ashes,
with ivy on my ankles, stifling hope up to my chin.
Living memories, my forest sheltered, scrambled for home;
small pretty beasts, unrefined, breathing caricatures with bones.
Screaming they beg for attention, inattentive to this situation as a whole.
Our own view is all we can consider.
This house of cards built on paper-cuts, from the trees before.
I'm now growing wiser to my winter freeze and your summer thaw.
I need all of these things I hate about me, and they can never be ignored;
a psychological pre-disposition, the only one I can afford.
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 10:59 AM UTC
I took the left path where hydrangeas grew and sleepy primroses under woods, edged shady trees.
The empty stream ran quietly dry
With grass cuttings piling high.
If one peeped, one would find tiny creatures
To cast a sparkle here and there, a delight.
So on tip-toe, with sandels bent
Up high I reached to take
The plastic fairy as she twirled a pirouette
In a theatre made by chance.
Reflected in a silver mirror intwinned with ivy branch
A mottled foal tends his dreams and Chrismas robin chirps.
My brother took the right hand path where the trees grew fruit
Ripe berries from the gooseberry bush bulged their prickles.
Dangling from hawthorn now a cowboy with a hat
Looking for his fellow Indian with the yellow back sack.
Sheep gather in a hollow, dark, protected from the sun
And Mr toad, now lost of paint, has turned a bit glum.
And so we leave our woodland friends and travel up the slope
Winding round the rose bed and goldfish where they float.
Then up we climb, the middle route, to jump the pruned clipped
Hedge.
The lawn divided in two halves, a contemporary taste.
Now we're nearly at that place where if one was to turn
Could see down across the land
To the sea and sand.
Of all the beauties that I've known
Nothing beats this Island home.
Love Mary x
My grandfather’s retirement bungalow was in Totland Isle of Wight.
It was named Innisfail meaning ‘Isle of Ireland’.
Behind, the garden led down to magical and delightful to children who came as visitors. My grandfather would prepare this woodland with some suitable surprises.
The garden and woodland deserved its own name and in retrospect
Is now named ‘Innislandia’ to suggest a separate, mysterious land.
Beyond the real world.
In the poem A Country Lane on page 8 the latched gate is the back gate to my grandparent’s garden and bungalow in Totland as above.
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 7:57 AM UTC
The dogs chasing the late autumn leaves
Fluttering down the lane way
The sound of the train as it passes by
Peaceful afternoon walk
The cottage walls and porches
Flourish of colour
Enwreathed with ivy green
Bellflowers, hollyhocks, hydrangea
Scents of lavender and sage
Evoke
Memories of childhood days
Visiting grandparents cottages
One in the Irish Wicklow mountains
The other in the suburbs of Athens city
The free flowing sound of the river
Smoke billowing from chimneys
The cottages have no pretense or grandeur
Just a sanctuary of comfort in the silence of the lane
Reaching the darkest corner of the soul
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
Babels of blocks to the high heavens towering
Flames of futility swirling below;
Poisonous fungi in brick and stone flowering,
Lanterns that shudder and death-lights that glow.
Black monstrous bridges across oily rivers,
Cobwebs of cable to nameless things spun;
Catacomb deeps whose dank chaos delivers
Streams of live foetor that rots in the sun.
Colour and splendour, disease and decaying,
Shrieking and ringing and crawling insane,
Rabbles exotic to stranger-gods praying,
Jumbles of odour that stifle the brain.
Legions of cats from the alleys nocturnal.
Howling and lean in the glare of the moon,
Screaming the future with mouthings infernal,
Yelling the Garden of Pluto's red rune.
Tall towers and pyramids ivy'd and crumbling,
Bats that swoop low in the weed-cumber'd streets;
Bleak Arkham bridges o'er rivers whose rumbling
Joins with no voice as the thick horde retreats.
Belfries that buckle against the moon totter,
Caverns whose mouths are by mosses effac'd,
And living to answer the wind and the water,
Only the lean cats that howl in the wastes.
15.8k
Cné
In my most desperate need
seek out a bush by a tree
rewarded with a rash on my rear end
relieving, with a squat, by poison ivy
No thank you, I will take a chance
in hopes of saving my ***
and hold it until I just can't
and avoiding a nasty rash
even if it means ....
I will possibly *** my pants
Temporal Fugue
*** the least of your worries
as your bladder will expand
making you make decisions
not all that good, or planned
So make your place
and keep your wits
bear, what you can stand
drop your drawers and hold your ****
and *** as god, demands
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 1:18 AM UTC
You had me hooked,
When you asked to cook for me.
But you seasoned my food with poison ivy.
© copyrighted Nicole Ann Osborn
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 10:27 PM UTC
The pathway to the hidden falls,
greenest trees and ivy walls,
Humid day and rain a threat,
Forest living, thick and wet.
Pebbles on this path to be,
Never ending, fast to me.
Flip flops make an obstacle,
For me to keep the pace we go.
The peach in hand is almost eaten,
When roaring waters reveal this Eden,
The water falls so quick approaching
seems to stick my memory's poaching.
We climb the uphill train of rocks,
more like boulders, need for socks,
Majesty miracle's tickle my senses,
Like watching babe ruth swing for the fences.
Something here is overpowering
behind the force field something is flowering,
Wet smooth rocks lay geometric,
something alive and something electric.
Native American premonitions,
Thoughts of the beginning of all of this swishin',
Waterfall dreams sparkle like diamonds,
Foam and water, slippery minded.
Brain chemical explosion.
Somethings been bound.
Something is gone
something I found
Burned in my imagination
is this place that I visited
on my vacation.
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 10:35 AM UTC
bon scott plays up a VOLCANO IN GUATEMALA
you see i start a partying in the night today
we are rocking and a rolling, yeah party, yeah
ya see we bring that volcano down to gualamala
yeah it’s about as cool as eating a banana
rock, ****** rock this volcano made ‘em rock
bring this party to the other end and rock
guatemala, is rocking tonight with malt and lava
is a rocking all night long
you see the house is a rocking, don’t bother knocking
yeah we will party, party we shall
rock this volcano, wreck the old life, WOW
i am going to get my spirit, and shake it down there
make all the people guatemala grin and ****** bare
and now i welcome slim dusty, i would love to have a beer with him
we drink in moderation dude, but our future, looks quite dim
yeah, we’ll drink in the town and country dudes
the people of guatemala feel distraught
cause we sent a big volcano, dude, from jupiter moon, that’s right
you see now we bring robert palmer in
how can it be permissible, oh yeah
this volcano in guatemala is unstoppable, ha
i wish there were ways to end it yeah
i would grab a methane and top it on ya, yeaH
It’s a strange occurrence first, it’s ****** hot, oh yer
it really destroys guatemala, dude the volcano is simply unstoppable
the walls are are shaking, the floor is melting
ya see, yeah we are covered in lava, and feel like ya melting
then i get up and look around, and i look up and see a volcano thrashing guatemala
ya see the volcano shook this town all night long
we’ll party on all night long
and then i get down and look around, to see if nobody has tipped methane on slim
you are hayley from bratayley
you are cool, the coolest dude around
i get up, and we’ll party down, we’ll drink ‘em down
then the old old man let’s out a big big frown
and i see barry allan as he walks past, i said come in bas boy, party on
and i tip a methane smoothie on barry, which shook the town of guatemala all night long
the methane shook it all night long
then slim dusty said, i will get a baked potato baked potato toast and jam
jupiter shook the guatemala volcano all night long, my dear
slim then said, watch bratayley, for me with new families, peter sergeant from canberra and ivy gimbert
and ivy and peter walked in and said, would you stop singing it up here
cause we need some COOL, for earth
baked potato baked potato, uhhhh baked potato
and then bon scott came up and said, PARTY PARTY,
and rock guatemala, while your at it, OK
AND we’ll keep this party rolling guatemala volcano malt and lava
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Holly, Ivy & Mistletoe.
Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe for Yule
Celebrate the return of the light
Deck your home with its greenery
And ribbons of red, green and gold shining bright
Ivy for the Lady, Holly for the Lord
Mistletoe for fertility, the Sun God reborn
Light up your home with candles soft, warm glow
Hail and welcome the new born babe this Yuletide Dawn
Blessed Be
Yule 2012 Nerwydd Dragonborne
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 4:01 PM UTC
O roses for the flush of youth,
And laurel for the perfect prime;
But pluck an ivy branch for me
Grown old before my time.
O violets for the grave of youth,
And bay for those dead in their prime;
Give me the withered leaves I chose
Before in the old time.
9.6k
My eyelids seem
to be the strongest part of me.
When the rest of my body
falls
into the ocean
of blankets they
float open upon the white water
atop
the waves of sleep.
This is when you come back.
In this mattress I am a piece
of clay and I can still feel the deep indentations of where your fingers
wrapped themselves like Ivy around my hips.
Hips, that stuck out like white flags of surrender and
fell to the ground in a straight line.
I can still hear
you.
I am a broken record,
and your whispers are the only track that plays at this hour.
“You are fat”
“Look at how flat you are Emma, no boy will ever look at you.”
“You are ugly.”
These are the nights when I can
feel the spiderwebs your words wrapped around my ribs and
listen to the way my heart beats constricted
in its cage, your hand still clenched around it.
Can’t you see me bleeding?
Safety lies
beneath my eyelids but you pull them open
I can feel
your icy touch behind my eyes as I stare
coldly at the ceiling.
you demand to be heard.
Did you mean to put your words
in my pocket when you reached in to steal the sleep that was nestled there like crumpled dollar bills?
Do you realize that you stayed with me?
Can you take your stolen midnight hours back and place them on your pillowcase?
Will your eyelids close?
Or can you still hear my cries of protest as your soundtrack plays into the night?
I don't understand?
Did you think it wouldn't hurt me?
Or did you want to live forever,so you put your
fingerprints where you knew they wouldn't fade.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 11:36 PM UTC
O singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!
Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!
And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
For thee the jocund shepherds wait;
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?
9.5k
—and not simply by the fact that this shading of
forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam,
the gloom of cypresses,
is what I wish to prove.
When you and I were first in love we drove
to the borders of Connacht
and entered a wood there.
Look down you said: this was once a famine road.
I looked down at ivy and the scutch grass
rough-cast stone had
disappeared into as you told me
in the second winter of their ordeal, in
1847, when the crop had failed twice,
Relief Committees gave
the starving Irish such roads to build.
Where they died, there the road ended
and ends still and when I take down
the map of this island, it is never so
I can say here is
the masterful, the apt rendering of
the spherical as flat, nor
an ingenious design which persuades a curve
into a plane,
but to tell myself again that
the line which says woodland and cries hunger
and gives out among sweet pine and cypress,
and finds no horizon
will not be there.
9.2k
You …
My Love.
My Queen.
This Shining Light in my eyes.
My Laughs.
My Dreams.
My Soft, Contented Sighs.
My *****
My Lavender.
My Dew Covered Rose.
My Smile.
My Cinnamon.
The Joy in my heart … ever inspiring my prose.
My Best Friend.
My Co-Star.
My Fearless Partner in Crime.
My Breath.
My Cohort.
My Side-kick throughout time.
My Snow-capped Mountain.
The Wind caressing my face.
My Vast Green Field.
The Ivy Covered Wall
that harbors my soul … ever refusing to yield.
You … are my Life.
You … are my World.
You … are my Everything
and I will always love you.
~Charlie Brown
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 8:03 AM UTC
My house is buried in the deepest recess of the forest
Every year, ivy vines grow longer than the year before.
Undisturbed by the affairs of the world I live at ease,
Woodmen’s singing rarely reaching me through the trees.
While the sun stays in the sky, I mend my torn clothes
And facing the moon, I read holy texts aloud to myself.
Let me drop a word of advice for believers of my faith.
To enjoy life’s immensity, you do not need many things.
8.3k
How this **** fable instructs
And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on bark's nun-black
Habit which deflects
All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the ****** shape
In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers,
Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne
Switched her incomparable back
For a bay-tree hide, respect's
Twined to her hard limbs like ivy: the puritan lip
Cries: 'Celebrate Syrinx whose demurs
Won her the frog-colored skin, pale pith and watery
Bed of a reed. Look:
Pine-needle armor protects
Pitys from Pan's assault! And though age drop
Their leafy crowns, their fame soars,
Eclipsing Eva, Cleo and Helen of Troy:
For which of those would speak
For a fashion that constricts
White bodies in a wooden girdle, root to top
Unfaced, unformed, the nipple-flowers
Shrouded to suckle darkness? Only they
Who keep cool and holy make
A sanctum to attract
Green virgins, consecrating limb and lip
To chastity's service: like prophets, like preachers,
They descant on the serene and seraphic beauty
Of virgins for virginity's sake.'
Be certain some such pact's
Been struck to keep all glory in the grip
Of ugly spinsters and barren sirs
As you etch on the inner window of your eye
This ****** on her rack:
She, ripe and unplucked, 's
Lain splayed too long in the tortuous boughs: overripe
Now, dour-faced, her fingers
Stiff as twigs, her body woodenly
Askew, she'll ache and wake
Though doomsday bud. Neglect's
Given her lips that lemon-tasting droop:
Untongued, all beauty's bright juice sours.
Tree-twist will ape this gross anatomy
Till irony's bough break.
8.6k
there's poison ivy
growing along
my spine
it caresses every
vertebrae
it's a climbing plant
you
know
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 7:48 PM UTC
There is a stranger sleeping on your floor
but you wanted an artist.
Beautiful things aren't easy.
I am tamed, comfortable.
You are wild. Smoke slips over my nose
when I think of you.
Alcoholic sweat, fingers down my throat
and I am North,
northbound.
Ivy League meets the Yellow Rose.
Sep 21, 2011
Sep 21, 2011 at 5:09 AM UTC
XXVI. TO DIONYSUS (13 lines)
(ll. 1-9) I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-
crying god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-
haired Nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his
father and fostered and nurtured him carefully in the dells of
Nysa, where by the will of his father he grew up in a sweet-
smelling cave, being reckoned among the immortals. But when the
goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, then began he to
wander continually through the woody coombes, thickly wreathed
with ivy and laurel. And the Nymphs followed in his train with
him for their leader; and the boundless forest was filled with
their outcry.
(ll. 10-13) And so hail to you, Dionysus, god of abundant
clusters! Grant that we may come again rejoicing to this season,
and from that season onwards for many a year.
7.8k