"lobsters" poems
Mary had a little lamb,
two lobsters and a Christmas ham,
a three-pound tub of chicken wings,
seven bratwurst tied with strings,
thirteen loaves of garlic bread,
a schnitzel bigger than her head,
four rare steaks, a dozen eggs,
caviar and turkey's legs,
strips of bacon, mushroom stew,
chunks of bread and cheese fondue,
and two whole jars of sauerkraut,
(to clean all of her insides out).
Finishing the pasta salad,
Mary soon looked drawn and pallid.
"I don't feel well," poor Mary said.
"I think I need to rest my head."
Then from her stomach came a moan,
a straining, churning, twisted groan.
Mary gasped; her eyes grew wide.
She'd only seconds to decide.
What could she do? Where could she go?
Her stomach was about to blow!
So, reaching for the nearest bucket,
she retched, and then began to chuck it.
All the courses that she'd swallowed,
and the apertifs they'd followed,
all the steaks and all the fish,
each and every single dish
came flying back from in her belly,
filling up the bucket smelly
with a foul and toxic brew,
and no one knew quite what to do,
so this went on for ten whole minutes
till Mary had expelled her innards.
When she was done, her eyes were red,
and sweat was pouring from her head.
"Are you alright, sweet Mary dear?"
her mother asked. She didn't hear.
For Mary was already off -
the waiters saw her try to scoff
the whole entire pudding bar.
Now, this had pushed her mum too far.
"Alright!" her mother cried, "I'm through!
I've done the best that I can do.
I'm sick and tired of all you eat.
I will not pay for all this meat.
I'm going home. Go get some help —"
Then Mary's mum let out a yelp!
She glanced down at her legs and saw
sweet Mary there begin to gnaw!
She struck the lass, but with great haste,
alas, the girl had reached her waist.
As Mary's ma was there devoured
by her offspring, overpowered,
she cried one thing ere final slaughter:
"It smells like lamb in here, my daughter."
Mary licked her lips and grinned.
She belched out loud and then broke wind.
She felt her tummy start to rumble -
and calmly ordered apple crumble.
Dec 18, 2017
Dec 18, 2017 at 4:52 AM UTC
THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.
They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky.
Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, "What shall we eat?"-and the waiters, "Have you ordered?" they are sixty ballon faces sifting white over the tuxedoes.
Poets, lawyers, ad men, mason contractors, smartalecks discussing "educated ********* here they put ***** into their balloon faces.
Here sit the heavy balloon face women lifting crimson lobsters into their crimson faces, lobsters out of Sargossa sea bottoms.
Here sits a man cross-examining a woman, "Where were you last night? What do you do with all your money? Who's buying your shoes now, anyhow?"
So they sit eating whitefish, two balloon faces swept on God's night wind.
And all the time the balloon spots on the wires, a little mile of festoons, they play their own silence play of film yellow and film gold, bubble blue and bubble red.
The wind crosses the town, the wind from the west side comes to the banks of marigolds boxed in the Marigold Gardens.
Night moths fly and fix their feet in the leaves and eat and are seen by the eaters.
The jazz outfit sweats and the drums and the saxophones reach for the ears of the eaters.
The chorus brought from Broadway works at the fun and the slouch of their shoulders, the kick of their ankles, reach for the eyes of the eaters.
These girls from Kokomo and Peoria, these hungry girls, since they are paid-for, let us look on and listen, let us get their number.
Why do I go again to the balloons on the wires, something for nothing, kin women of the half-moon, dream women?
And the half-moon swinging on the wind crossing the town-these two, the half-moon and the wind-this will be about all, this will be about all.
Eaters, go to it; your mazuma pays for it all; it's a knockout, a classy knockout-and payday always comes.
The moths in the marigolds will do for me, the half-moon, the wishing wind and the little mile of balloon spots on wires-this will be about all, this will be about all.
5.5k
"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won' t you, won' t you join the dance?
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"
But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance--
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France--
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
Will you, won' t you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance ?"
4.8k
There was an old man of Blackheath,
Whose head was adorned with a wreath,
Of lobsters and spice,
Pickled onions and mice,
That uncommon old man of Blackheath.
3.9k
She might laugh if she read this
at the flat little version of her
that lives in my mind.
She may laugh
at my comparison of her
to a hideous sea spider
but hear me out
it could be touching.
David Foster Wallace wrote:
*“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience
we do not have direct access
to anyone or anything’s pain but our own;
and even just the principles
by which we can infer that others experience pain
and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain
involve ******** philosophy—
metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.”
*"[Lobsters] do have an exquisite tactile sense,
one facilitated by hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs
that protrude through their carapace.
Although encased
in what seems a solid, impenetrable armour,
the lobster can receive stimuli and impressions from without
as readily as if it possessed a soft and delicate skin.”*
and so
“We lift lobsters out of the bag
or whatever retail container they came home in
…whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen.
However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance,
it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water."*
As much as I cannot comprehend the pain
of the exquisitely tactile lobster
in a *** of boiling water,
I wonder if I could
walk a mile in a lobster’s 8 minuscule shoes
and I wonder
what it might mean or not mean to her
with her armoured yet acute exoskeleton
to be back at home with her father.
They might try to butter you up
or snap elastic bands
around your oversized claws
and use a wooden spoon
to try and nudge your thrashing, clinging arms
back into the ***
but remember:
lobsters can live to be over 100 years old
and grow to over 20 pounds in size
which is very large for an aquatic insect
and remember that they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws.
And DFW famously said,
“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”
and he's not a lobster either
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 6:18 PM UTC
‘Tis the eyes of the Lobster: all beady and black
Little black pearls; but luster they lack
They stare and stare with nary a blink.
And heavens to Betsy if you know what they think!
With pinchers and crushers and blood of blue
I’m not so sure I’d want one in my stew!
The new year dawns and here am I
Writing of lobsters and I’m not sure why!
Oh, but I jest and of course I do!
‘Twas a bet! I lost! And now pay my due.
Sincere apologies to those who read.
I know it’s rough. I must complete this deed.
I hope this ditty; whatever it be
Fits the bill and you’re more than pleased, --!*
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 9:40 AM UTC
I saw him at work;
When he would visit the mangal
With a ***** over his shoulder.
He rolled up his pant legs and walked
Through the tidal wash. Once he had picked a tree,
He hacked for three days to cut
The mud and the mangrove
Free from the surrounding forest.
He piloted his self-made island into the lagoon.
Shortly, he became mangrove crazy,
A disease he called Rhizophoria
In the notebook he had taken along.
With mud lobsters and tree for his only company,
Of course he had mangrove on the brain.
His life became an ellipsis—
The two centers were the tree and himself.
From tubular mangrove branches, propagules fattened,
And seeds nested inside them;
He would scribble notes with delirium as they fell
Plumply into the lagoon
And were pulled away by the warm current.
Each time the tree condensed its salt
Into a sacrificial leaf,
He would sadly add a tick
To the tally of the dead he kept in his book.
He once wrote:
‘The salt is burning my eyes.’
Late afternoons, with beer in our hands,
We would watch him from the beach,
Five hundred yards away.
Eventually, his mangrove island drifted ashore—
He lay by the suberic roots
With a crust of salt along his cheek.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 9:45 PM UTC
cicada song--
faint ocean sounds in a shell
while lobsters scream
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 9:46 PM UTC
Lobsters
@2014 Linda Barrett
They sit in the cramped corners
of the water tank
face each other
armored claws bound
with thick rubber bands
These shelled warriors
take on boxer’s stances
wait their chance
to attack each other
in impromptu bouts
They step over one another
pick fights for dominance
of their watery ring
Some desperate crustaceans
decide to make their escape
reach out for the tank’s top
but fall over backwards
onto each other
Those lucky ones
usually win
when the Seafood man
in his white coat
pulls them out
makes the champions
of someone’s dinner.
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
Near the Houston hotel sitting on the bench,
looking at the warring sun,
I see it's thoughts
fill the amber sky.
I feel. The heat -
Pouring on the the pillars of the blue and purple shoreline.
Her.
As the sunset runs in
The stars twinkle like a dying headlight, a
deer passes by the ocean. And immediately
the rain falls, my blue jeans are soaked, and the
crash of clouds and thunder with enormous rain fill the night air.
I race and reach for the memories.
Running through the ocean blue,
Searching for her silver eyes,
The sky stands black along the naked coastline.
Still running, crushing, subduing
the ***** lobsters, and rocks underneath
the open earth.
I'm running to find her eyes again.
Where home felt so new, against her wit and lovely sarcasm,
and her untimely ways, my life never felt so real,
I stand on mountains looking for a place to kneel
before her silver eyes.
In the distance, I hold the warmth of her hands,
For in the secrets of her dress, her name reverberates
like blue Texan rivers.
Her smile hangs like the moon over water,
and I breathe my dreams out for her, my sweet surrender.
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 10:21 PM UTC
*“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience"
"we do not have direct access"
"to anyone or anything’s pain"
"but our own;"
"and even just the principles"
"by which we can infer"
"that others experience pain"
"and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain"
"involve ******** philosophy—"
"metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.”*
- From Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
David I've considered it and
I think she might laugh if she read
that a version of her
briny and spined
pint sized
now resides in the depths of my mind,
She might laugh
at my comparison of her
to a hideous sea spider
but it’s because, as you say,
one can neither comprehend the pain
of an exquisitely tactile lobster in a *** of boiling water,
nor walk a mile in it's eight lilliputian shoes
So I am left to wonder
what it might mean or not mean to her
in her armoured yet acute exoskeleton
to have quit school and
be back to her fathers house
on Prince Edward Island.
and what I'd want to tell her is:
They might try to butter you up,
bridle your anger with blue rubber bands,
Use their wooden spoons
to nudge your thrashing, clinging arms
back into the ***
but as we know,
lobsters can live to be over one hundred years old
and grow to be over twenty pounds in size
which is very large for an aquatic insect
and they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae,
characterized by five pairs of jointed legs,
the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws
I know she knows how to use them.
Which reminds me of something else you said:
"Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it."
A feeling I can understand
Though I'm no more lobster
than she
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 10:46 PM UTC
Staring through my reflection
at the lobsters in the tank.
Tears welling, not for them; but me,
envious of their imminent fate.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 2:05 AM UTC
silencio
green headless are on the counter
screaming their watch-less glare
they lie silent in their wrathful stare
at my wall-less lair
this was not supposed to be
the bilipid layered says
I cannot watch you out to die
the zeroes yell this time
coreless deficient famine
the clock ticks its time
i think my mom is at the dock of the sea harbor in Sublime
and don't their lobsters never die?
if that is cake then so be it
and then we will make you mine.
chant with me,
hey no more negativity,
we'll go out and find a dime
it was till then I saw the ******
at the rear end of the bus
who told me... no more... no less
was what the bus was fee-d
a journey travelled
and journey lost
to Target I ventured to and back
and here the sandless land
I find you
weighed measured and broken
by your own laughing stairs.
llorando
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 2:17 AM UTC
I hate myself
more than a lobster hates boiling water
which is impossible
the boiling water kills the lobster
but just like the boiling water going into the lobsters skin boiling everything inside
is how slowly im taking my own life
with every scar I leave on my skin
that is how much I hate myself
j.f
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 2:24 AM UTC
A sworn, torn man stands at the top of the world’s longest staircase, and my friends and I have signed up to ride. Millions of others stand between us and the top, waiting for their chance, their prime, to resign. We sulk in the depths of the sea and hope that someday we may be free.
The man holds penned paper that the depths cannot perceive, but we know it. Our ticket to the roller coaster lies, with number, on a digit. I and my friends were anglerfish before, but now we are eels. We no longer need dangly lights to guide us to prey, and now we tie ourselves and each other in knots.
Life is fun later when we are dolphins, then porpoises, then whales with legs, walking onto the seashore as brisk as can be, drinking our saliva as though it were a river overflowing with our survival. We walk in to the forest and steam lobsters over a log-fire. The wings with the tickets laugh at the monotony below him, but we’re below him even in that.
Grey skies cloud overhead, and we realize where we are. I and my friends run from the thunder that comes in every drop, the acid in every drop; where the water helped before, it now forms uncomfortabilities in our skin, nonconforming to the mutations of standard evolution. We need shelter, now, fast, and together. A huge tree is mostly protective.
Eventually a ladder of clouds drops down and draws us like a magnet. We can’t stop it, the clock has rung fourteen for two days now. We then have arms and can climb it, so we do, though the rain left pimples on our faces.
We ascend to the front of the line.
“Hello, ticketman, where are we headed?” we ask. He says, “Darlings, you haven’t been anywhere in the first place; how can you be headed to a where? First, go tackle a why.”
The rollercoaster takes off, shoots off – a rocket propels us through precarious stages of life. We have ups and downs and sideways parts we can’t really decide the morals of, and we enjoy it.
Then we are dead.
Oct 15, 2010
Oct 15, 2010 at 1:24 PM UTC
The sea's grown calm,
Just two days out,
Finally,
The ice is in our wake,
We're thinking of a
Run ashore,
We've earned it,
Six days through
The sea smoke,
Fog,
Ice bergs,
Bergy bits,
Growlers,
All the usual debris
Of travel in these parts,
Now the only debris,
Pods of whales,
Folks pay to see them,
We get paid to see 'em,
Sort of,
It's been a long cruise,
But still,
We are getting paid,
In the morning,
We'll give the ship
A bath,
And get ready for
A real reward,
There's got to be
Some reward,
For vigilance,
And boredom
All across the pond,
And there is a reward,
There'll be Newfie merchants
On the jetty,
Bringing to us,
Barrels of...
Lobsters,
They don't have much,
In Newfie Land,
But lobsters they've got,
An over supply,
We'll bring 'em home,
Steamed and frozen,
Ready to eat,
And while we're here,
Perhaps a little beer,
A reward for not hitting
A single whale,
Let's keep the Navigator sober,
Insurance that he miss
Sable Island,
On the next leg south,
After all,
It's the last leg home.
And so,
St. John's,
Not a garden spot,
But good enough,
To be the last stop.
Oct 24, 2011
Oct 24, 2011 at 10:36 PM UTC
Somewhere beneath the broad darkness
and the landslide, there’s a pocket
of nothingness, like the air bubbles
that oxygenate red wine. And somewhere
inside that, there I am,
mime-hands loving Stevie Smith
and all she stood for. A void
is just a void, and a poem
is just a poem, no matter how
you read it. You can bring this
into the church and line it up with the stained glass,
looking for a hidden meaning,
but I know this nothingness intimately,
like I know soft skin and the taste of *****
and there is nothing to be found in there
that isn’t already inside you, except
maybe warmth and candlelight
and the idea that nothing is too far gone
to not be saved anymore. Sometimes,
I think people intentionally obscure what they mean,
like they’re not good enough for a line break,
and like it’ll be easier to rationalise being left behind
if they were limping from the start of the race
anyway. Anyway. Sorry about this;
sorry about all of this, I just really like how it looks
when you try to work any of this out.
Because it looks dismal. It looks like a pregnant
sundial churning out another day,
another day that might be Sunday,
but it also might not. It’s not like I know.
I think this stopped being a poem a few lines ago
and started being something to burn, instead,
but you can take the smallest of lighters
to the mightiest of Goliaths and they’ll scream
all the same. I heard that lobsters scream
if you put them in boiling water whilst they’re still alive.
I feel like that sometimes.
I don’t know if I’m the lobster or the water,
most days. I think I know now.
I think I know something, now,
at least.
Aug 9, 2020
Aug 9, 2020 at 7:10 PM UTC
Just one more before I go
I settled the issue on an offshore toe
Boat
Float
Away sweet chariot of lobsters
Take away the mobsters
And let the freak flag fly
In the eye
Of all those attempting to pin you down
I think it's funny to see a clown frown
Manic depressive
Manly-oppressive
I haven't heard anything from you
I shot to the sky twice with 6 bullets
4 went to the side of my life
Slice of pie
In my lie
Of everything
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 4:23 PM UTC
The cedar chips were being spread
in Oregon City when you went to Grandpa’s.
The coffee shop is open, gravel on the drive,
sheets speckled with lobsters carry you
in sleeptime while in Boston mine is feverish
without your mouth, reaching out.
I dream of abortion at a waxing studio,
diving into bowls of cereal, checking
every room--
I look in closets.
You’re not one for dreams-- you salt notebooks
with navy marks, dripping pen onto pillows,
the world a sweet heuristic I cannot know.
You make me live quiet. I stop
screaming and pulling bird feathers. I gather
tea cups, pull chest hair, carve a warm nest
from soap suds and candy.
My poetry was drawn from angst,
from drunken dream light, eggs frying
on hot pavement, a galloping horse. Now,
I want
a pen carving
patterns of earth into our skin.
I want kisses and puppies, shrimp cocktail,
birthdays and bathrobes, a walk
in the snow.
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 2:36 PM UTC
Lobsters in the ocean.
Lobsters in the traps.
Lobsters on the lobster boats.
Never going back.
Lobsters at the Co-Op.
Lobsters in the car.
Lobsters topped with seaweed
gettin' closer to the fire (pronounced far with a drawl accent)
Lobsters in the steamin' ***
Amazing Grace, they're done.
Lobsters on the table.
Lobsters.
Yum. Yum. Yum.
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
Numb deep within
Can't feel my feet
Up to my heart
Do i exist?
Anytime i feel
It hurts
Everyrhing races
i am afriad
I can't remeber
Ever belonging
Not in a social sense
Or being real
I get too tired
I feel as a child
Seeing monsters
Giant man eating
Lobsters
Demons running amok
Every breath of mine is bad
Luck
I swear to god
I belong in a mental institute
Im not real
Are you?
I'm alone
Ive been alone forever
And ever more
I'll be alone
My life is flashing
It's all been so quick
And I've hated every second
Of my breathing
I miss my mother
I miss my brothers
My whole family
I think played a big whammy
They must be fake too
My scared eyes sometimes see
Through
Theres a veil you see
Doctors say it's anxiety
Thats a lie to keep me busy
We aren't real
I'm so scared
I can't describe this fear
It never leaves me
I'm shivering and afraid
The monsters coming to consume me
Look hard enough
You'll see real mosnters
Slenderman and demons
Theyre all real
Mocking us
Im still a little girl
Sad and afriad of the world
All i see is fear and creatures
Lurking with no ****** features
No one will hold me
My soul is ******* empty
Is god real
Why won't he answer me
He probabaly is around
And ignoring me
That is the theme of my
Reality
Can someone just hold me
Let me forget my dark reality
Im so ******* afraid
I must be extremely brave
I see demons larger then i can comprehend
Yet i go out and still stand
If someone held me
And didn't leave
Maybe for ahwile
I would feel real
And not as a scared
Child
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 4:46 AM UTC
We stand there laughing
As lobsters are fighting
I suggest their plotting
some kind of escape?!
You tell me *nooo,
they're definitely fighting.*
We stand and watch it out.
I lean against you and smile
at this tank in the store.
Then we move on
and continue to explore.
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 2:33 AM UTC
there was a little buffalo he got really bored
he built himself a boat and traveled off abroad
sailed across the sea to a foreign shore
and landed in a place he never saw before
it had golden sand and great big reef
he put on his snorkel and took a dive beneath
there were lots of fish sharks and so much more
lots of different creatures with the colors by the score
there were lots of starfish lobsters that were blue
and a lot of ***** there were quite a few.
then he saw a dolphin chasing after fish
this it was his food his very favorite dish.
buffalo was happy he was having fun
in this land of beauty underneath the sun
his boredom it had gone he was bright and gay
he enjoyed the things he saw and his holiday
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 11:51 AM UTC