"menagerie" poems
THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun-I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and **** ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and **** and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
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In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
Feel like dyin'
feel like cryin'
screaming as the darkness
closes in.
holding everything in,
shredding the pain with each layer of skin-
tormented by the shadows
that conglomerate elsewhere.
For underneath this shrill menagerie,
my heart beats
still and cold.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 8:08 AM UTC
On old mainstreet, sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.
Rednecks and faux-necks and used-to-be-loggers,
Crafters and rafters, and activist bloggers,
And poets and hippies and mystics and fools,
And outcasts from the secondary schools,
And gypsies too: you’ll find them here,
Drowning in local, hand-crafted beer.
At night, locals sip organic tea,
And turn up the menagerie
Of lights and mics from another age,
Pieced together to make a stage.
And there, the guitarists waste their breath
Beating the Same. Four. Chords. To. Death.
There are some new lyrics, there and here,
But all of them memories of yester-year:
A year spent in the same **** space,
With others who’ve never left this place.
They sing of their dear loves and pasts,
And how much longer the wandering lasts.
And on they wail, and on they moan,
And twang the antique, rustic tone,
But their faces show they like it here,
This breaking haunt of yester-year,
And after the set, they carouse with cheer,
And smile contentedly to their beer.
On old mainstreet sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 3:17 AM UTC
All day panda girl reclines
Exercise she declines
Horsey girl will bring you luck ( U )
Her legs are strong and she drives a truck
Bonobo girl is worth consideration
Taking account of her reputation
Cat girl charms you with her eyes
She chings her claws and claims her prize
Crocodile girl will make you happy
Until she gets a bit too snappy
Dormouse girl may give a peep
Together you'll have a lovely sleep
Turtle girl will be just swell
If you coax her from her shell
Wallaby girl needs some space
To hop about from place to place
Tarantula girl gives you pangs
When she shows her fearsome fangs
Cougar woman's after me
Completing my fantasy
Menagerie
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 1:33 PM UTC
Mannequin smiles with masks of plastic
stand and huddle, fight and juggle,
for their space in the crowd.
Elbows touching torsos,
torsos touching hips;
kisses under the darkness,
bonfire warming the lips.
A child sits on the shoulders of her rock,
hands resting in the lap of his head,
waiting for the fireworks to be ignited,
set off, lit and begin.
Eyes of raw astonishment,
watery with cold,
a deer eye mould,
looked up at the firework display.
Sharp colour crayon lines
were drawn in the night-time sky.
Sound followed,
cheers and claps, applauds too.
They were lost in the hollow hole
of the houses around,
this’ll be the one she remembers.
Her first display of sound and light
and she’ll remember how she jumped up and down
to carnival music and carnival folk, rides and light,
menagerie sights.
News from the blog regarding my new poetry pamphlet, check the link out>> http://www.coffeeshoppoems.com/2012/11/homeland-borderland.html
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 1:07 PM UTC
There are so many sides to me...
A perplexing mixed identity...
A spliced yet whole menagerie...
Of characters...
To meet each one...is to be undone...
Touched...without flesh...
I am Vesuvius...just below the surface...
Molten malice merging...swirling...
The narrow Nile...
Meandering mildly...coaxing vexing perplexing...wildly...
A temptress...a child...a bitter diatribe...holding...no...unfolding...
This story...non-benign...
And this is where you come in...
Tumultuous tide...your raging winds...
A course-less calamity...to pursue...
That is not me...THAT...is you...
Unbridled...and unabashed...
Alas our toxic story line...how well embittered did entwine...our love...
Dangerous pursuit...then...you took root...
Off with the loot...
Of my misfortune...
I attempt to fold...
Forfeit my resentment...discontentment...
My own deliverance from you...
You disappear...no...transform
Retreat...from your chaotic norm...
Another type of magic trick...to capture my bewilderment....
Fully...
Fooly...
Folly...
Tears tremble on edge...carried swiftly from ledge...where they teeter...
Behind each one...is held an ocean...
A watery well...
Endless emotion...
Navigating features...dodging dignities plea...
WE...
Toss the currency of love into the depths...
Whisper wishes on the wind...
The downward dance...a wishes chance...
The murky bottom is but wishful thinking...
I should be rich off the wonder...
That put asunder...Our love...
I am Vesuvius...
Just below the surface...
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 12:50 PM UTC
My hands gently sift through your silky hair
Pulling softly at the base to hear you moan
A shiver tingles down my spine at your purr
I can be impatient
I can be bossy
But you always give in to my urges
Ripping, tearing, biting, ******* a menagerie of ***** slick sweat ****
Bleed for me
What can they not understand about me needing that?
Crimson welling up beneath your ribcage
Only a small slice, small sacrifice to lay at your *** goddess's feet
Most bring flowers but only you know what I really want
Copper twist rot ****** at the base of your ****
I can only give love once
Broken and bruised you'll never get the same me twice
Reborn matted and patched
Willing to skull stomp them all to come out on top
Triumphant
Bloodied
Sated
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 1:09 AM UTC
There are constellations between your teeth and you have starlight wrapped around your tongue, there is moonlight in your eyes but sunlight in your smile
Every time you breath you inhale glitter and oxygen and powdered sugar, the scent of grass and strawberries and hope
Flowers bloom between your ribs and wind through the joints in your hips, your knees, your wrists
There is a whole menagerie in your stomach, butterflies and pelicans and Bengal tigers
Your skin is crushed velvet, silk and lace, encasing a skeleton of steel and iron, silver filigree
Your hands are soft as cotton, rose petals, strong as the will of all your ancestors.
When you die you will melt back into the earth, disintegrate and fall back to where you came from
You will be absorbed back into the atmosphere and the universe will swallow you up.
It will rearrange your atoms and produce something completely you but completely different.
You are one of a kind, you are the entire universe.
You will never be again, but you will never stop being.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
Tear down the clouds, kindle the summer sun
Let the bright, flooding clarity come
Displace the darkened world’s gloom
Let all the liars speak too soon
Make the wise men start to shave
Give voice to bodies in mass graves
Shatter insecurity, staring from its mirror
Pack away the things we most fear
Spark bonfires in every child’s heart
Teach them love, the most delicate art
Show all the CEOs what emotions are
Build great ladders to hug the stars
Put bows round each headstone
Free the debtors, forget their loans
Free every convict of insignificant crime
Fill the public fountains with a hundred thousand dimes
Make all the mourners dress in white lace
Let the summer sun shine from every face
Remove the cobwebs from the sad boys’ rooms
Steal the black thread from the weavers’ looms
Watch all nightfall melt away
Into a celestial menagerie
Stark prison of the heart
Let beauty’s peaceful riot start
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 1:28 PM UTC
~
*Step into the moment
with bated breath,
There will come
the beguilement
and whispered shadows at play,
they seem to congeal around
conflagration of wills
and spirits considered outré.
And if it should rain
within these walls,
we'll advance south and sneak
under cover.
Fingers will find,
lips will linger and remind.
It will be a slow
recovery this time.
The places we travel go beyond
the arms reach,
they war for supremacy,
they alter and spasm,
they're random, but hover
between us in unity.
This dance we make
is an intimate ballet,
this push and pull
a blissful menagerie,
a wrinkle in time
we call ecstasy.
In kisses christened as luminaries,
appointing our own ceiling
— a mural painted in the keen
colors of craving.
The years of such sweet communion
have built this shelter, this nest,
and here together we rest.
And we are no less surrendering
to them than straddling the heavens
— the gauze of time,
timber and tranquility enmeshed,
and wishing it never ends.*
~
May 24, 2021
May 24, 2021 at 1:54 PM UTC
Carved from marble,
marvelous and draped in my covers,
floating above my head in a puff of smoke or
as a cartoonish memory
I stay in bed today,
peeking through the blinds.
Surrounded by no one but my
soft and artificial menagerie,
I'm bubbling at the lip.
There are sacks of rice sitting
right above my hips and they're
heavy. Who will help me hold them?
Pressing a thumb to the surface and wincing;
I can feel the grains shifting under my skin.
Today I cooked the rice.
, I swear.
Heat built up in the *** til steam was lifting off my skin^
Hard crunchy bits to tenderize,
softening under the lid.
When I felt that click,
I broke out my wooden spoon
and ate a big plate.
The warm fluffy substance blessed my full cheeks and belly.
For the first time,
I felt like I wasn't hungry.
Maybe tomorrow when I bathe
I'll grow 3 or 4 times my size.
Water-logged
I will fill up the tub,
ceramic squeezing my fleshy form into a
rectangular shape.
Stick a spoon in
and eat me piece by piece.
May 1, 2021
May 1, 2021 at 9:12 AM UTC
The midnight air is filled with
fetid sewage
the city block houses
yards of gravel and broken bricks
decorated streets of graffiti and *****
roaches skitter across sidewalks
A homeless woman sleeps on the sidewalk
a hundred yards away from the lofts
where I am safe
And I think where did it go wrong?
You lie here every night
with a casted foot and crutches
covered with the remains of a blanket
wondering where the next meal hides
Do you beg or play the raccoon?
This city never slows
sirens howl to the light polluted sky
constantly
like a coyotes staccato bark
Cranes reach toward the heavens
with a question to ask God
Can we build to your home and charge a fee to view the gates?
The nightclub below full of drunks
or to be drunks,
bellowing for attention
before riding home with a stranger
and waking up to another mistake
of empty emotions
With a hunger for acceptance
one will venture out
with one of questionable honesty
if the drugs are cheap
And here I am
walking the ***** streets
at one in the morning
in this menagerie of a city
because I can’t
Sleep
absorbing the sights and the smell
of sick and disgust
but in the morning all will be
Different
The sun will hide the dark
the sky will add color
the homeless will be camouflaged
with the busy crowd
buildings will look alive
bustling with people
the crane will be building
looking for an answer
And I still will not be able to
Sleep.
**** this filthy city.
And yet, I wouldn’t call any other place home.
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 1:54 AM UTC
Grandpa melted two squirrels together using the fat from their bodies after skinning the skin from their bellies. They were dead before he began this project, of course. He's a taxidermist.
Grandpa is surely to blame for many a nightmare–
The jars of eyes and teeth collected from years of scraping corpses off the highway.
But as the Buddhists preach, I've found some blessings in his macabre pastime.
Most of my friends shy away from the undesirable aspects of life;
Death bringing up the forefront.
I feel that grandpa's melancholy menagerie has helped me
Cozy up to the idea that despite life's bountiful beauty,
A dark side coexists intertwined-
But darkness is not always
A bad thing...
Is it?
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 7:22 PM UTC
encamped on a barren savanna
a formaldehyde trick laid
beneath a palace of red canvas
carcasses of Noah's Ark
left for a menagerie of men
a spectacle of meat and bone
the tides of oddities come crashing
against the shores of spectators
the earth opens its hands to carry
the rails that lead an entourage of
grandeur at the ring master's ordinance
God's children in satin and sequins
Devil's work bared in ink and blood
ladies and gentlemen!
wooden pews for the congregation
occupied by followers seeking refuge
in the sacred acts of manipulation
enchantment for children
necromancy for those who walk
with hearts no longer beating
for the world they once knew
prepare to be amazed!
tight ropes are spun into webs
painted skin become prisms
nature's anomalies turned
into golden mythologies
figments of A Vision
brought to life by an apparition
the most extravagant extravaganza!
and the world burns anew
contemporary tales are told through
a splendor of color and brilliance
in a palace of red canvas
lay the corpses of humanity's finest
a formaldehyde trick
of preservation and deception
come one come all!
an asylum for those consumed
a sanctuary for those comforted
by the art of celebrated illusion
an institution built on maneuvering
the depths of every man's heart
welcome to the circus
sit back and enjoy the show!
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
darkness signals the
retreat into
the shell
of sea-side
sounds.
they whisper
innermost thoughts
of blindness and
profound seconds
of suspended
fallen flowers.
the recluse
can see more
in the deepest night
than the lightest
day.
thoughts circle with
the stars, as the
atrophy of apathy
begins
and the menagerie of
faltering frowns
follows.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 3:02 AM UTC
Life: A Carnival
In so many ways
we are a human freak show,
just a breathing carnival attraction.
So get the **** off your high horse,
look around
be mesmerized,
hypnotized
and wonderized by a world of awe.
Let’s get real,
move a few strands of DNA
from here to there,
drop some chromosomes at the deli
to re-arrange their eating patterns
and we would see that
those mindless amoebas down the street
is talking our language.
Of all the billions of species
populating this planet,
we humans are the most
ignorant, opinionated,
**** for brains fools.
We puff out our stupidity
on a regular basis,
books, movies, music,
TV and social media
24/7/365
there is no end to the
racist, slime eating,
motherfukers
brought out in grand displays
as “experts”
in a single hour
of opinion disguised as “news”
on Fox, or CNN,
NBC, ABC or CBS
a menagerie of fools.
The world is a marvelous place,
alive with diversity,
which we should embrace.
All of us, humans wide,
emerged from Africa,
humanities origins
10's of thousands of years ago.
We humans are a carnival,
a side tent freak show,
all diverse and magnificent.
And to all those idiot
religious fanatics,
USA, USA ignoramuses,
de-evolve your brains,
slither back under your rock,
go back to your ancient,
long gone
humanoid origins,
become like you are,
extinct.
Aztec Warrior/redzone 8.28.16
Note: yes it’s a rant after watching an hour of Fox
CNN and MSNBC news... I must go throw up now.
Apologies to Natalie Merchant whose song “Carnival”
is embedded below, her song is a much more kinder
celebration of our diversity.. I on the other hand
cannot stay calm in the face of fascist fanatics
pretending to speak for human beings.
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 10:16 AM UTC
Release the bowels and scrub the shame
Metal grit hand-towels
A curious novelty I would come to know as omen
Tacky pink tiles- well noted
Return to see my identity bereaved
Or maybe just my clothes
Strange how they blend in turmoil
No fear for the pistol at my gut, braved in its defense
No fear for thugs I make my company
Even as silent secrets are sent racing across fingertips
I am untouchable
A crowd grows, a debaucherous menagerie
Of Drug abuse and ****** bliss; the **** grows
Time and place erase
Two blue lakes of cotton; now green vines of vinyl
It makes no matter: the **** grows
It grows until memory is no more
Just a fear – what has happened?
And her face is there, the soft skin
The sharp features. The sly smile.
Soft mahogany and Serpent eyes
A beauty you cannot surmise
“You were mine, and I was you.
Taken as I’ll take again”
Then our next meeting, not so far from then
As the scratching record is played again
In headphones meant to control
Resist!
She has my arms, too weak to move
She has my neck, strained to turn
They will take you, and then
YOU will be no more, just a thing
A servant to this beckoning
RESIST!
This battle in your mind, control
As the beat grows louder, that maddening din
So full of fear as you entertain it’s sin
What can you do, once it’s powers in?
HELP! I mean to cry
But nothing with my lips so dry
HELP! I try to choke
All that leaves is wisps of smoke
HELP! And there it is
A whisper, for what the battle did
~ “help” I groan, and finally awake.
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 2:27 AM UTC
290
Of Bronze—and Blaze—
The North—Tonight—
So adequate—it forms—
So preconcerted with itself—
So distant—to alarms—
And Unconcern so sovereign
To Universe, or me—
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty—
Till I take vaster attitudes—
And strut upon my stem—
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them—
My Splendors, are Menagerie—
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass—
Whom none but Beetles—know.
1.7k
Vapours appear as if by magic
On the blue canvas of the sky
Creating curious shapes
Or, is it a trick of the eye?
Cauliflower clouds accumulate
Into such a mountainous size;
Mushrooms seem to sprout
Right before my very eyes.
Next, a little white rabbit
With thin, pointy ears
And a mouse with whiskers
Shapes, and slowly appears.
Soon, a whole menagerie
Of animals come into view;
An elephant and a seagull
And even a kangaroo!
My, what a most impressive
Vaporous display;
Much too good to ignore
At the end of the day
As it’s then that these scenes
Appear at their very best
When the setting sun splits rays
And I feel my heart won’t rest
As it beats excitedly at
These pleasing pictures to view;
No artist could capture completely
A painting as lifelike, as true.
So, when you look up at clouds
And wish they wasn't there
Consider that these vapours in azure
Floating quietly in the air
Gently pour life-sustaining rain
Onto the thirsty earth
And thus, each cloud actually
Has a great deal of worth.
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 12:18 PM UTC
Tuesdays remind me of third grade
and so does astrology.
Our tables formed a pentagon, it was me and the beautifuls:
come the good-looking maid called Destinee
with two e’s, not one and not even a y, she had two e’s.
I modeled myself after her cerulean lenses
eye sockets that were pulled back by dinosaur bones
and gave wrinkles to her forehead prematurely, six speckles
like ostrich eggs gathering under a stratum of mud.
She was dark-headed, she wasn’t fair.
She had sorcery in her collar, fairies in her pulse.
Her mother had the name of a Chihuahua or evil witch:
I secretly cursed her for having a daughter so lovely
who I could not peck on Tuesday field-trips to a menagerie
just because she was as feminine as me.
That is how I learned about destiny
and Destinee, so pretty pretty.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 7:16 PM UTC
my body is no longer my body long
but a short grunt
of atmospheric
twine
entangled in the long con
of birth
and the shambles of our every
dream...
the semaphore
on a dead wind
of a flat Sea.
to rival the catacombs of your placid menagerie.
higher than brick kites
we.
and some of the absolute
squanders the never fails
and the dead end
lives at the end
of the block
where you're
mental.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 7:57 PM UTC
God what I'd give for her goodnight kiss
a menagerie of midnight looks and licks at her lips
a motley mix of *** and sensual slips between her hips
If only for tonight my face could caress her fingertips
If her chestnut and champagne tresses could traipse across my silhouette
If i could have the privilege to be powerlessly entranced by her eyes like on the day we met
God what I'd give for her goodnight kiss
If before sleep our mouths could be the strings, I'd be her marionette
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 12:26 PM UTC
If you’ve only ever smelled fir trees covered with freshly fallen snow-
then you haven’t smelled it.
It’s an acquired smell, for sure.
It comes just in between the whiffs of
mashed potatoes
mashed carrots
mashed peas
mashed turkey
hell, mashed ginger-ale for all I know. . .
Somewhere amongst that microwaved menagerie, masked with the smell of eau de toilette,
it lives, and smells sweeter the longer brown sugar bubbles on top of caramelizing yams.
If you can’t smell it, maybe you can find it.
Not many can, or do.
It hides in plain sight, though.
A lost and found box with accumulated cobwebs - everything still unclaimed.
A flyer for free puppies that no one ever took because they were “too much responsibility.”
Maybe there aren’t enough seekers in this game of empty rooms and blank guest books.
But keep looking, until bingo prize hand-me-downs after school plays look like Oscars.
You won’t see it until it makes you believe that plastic Mardis Gras beads are Tiffany-blue boxes.
It’s not so much in the nose, or the eyes as it is in the endurance.
Endure the voiceless Glenn Miller until his brass bellows become her voice -
whispering “I love you” to the effortless rhythm of “Moonlight Serenade.”
And imagine her,
swapping her orthopedics for black heels,
elegantly taking Pop’s hand as he helps her up from her wheelchair,
to join him for just one more dance.
Watch as they become the sepia-colored couple in every anniversary photo.
That black dress. Those fake pearls.
The crescendo of the band.
It’s hard to miss when it’s screaming at you.
Feb 18, 2014
Feb 18, 2014 at 11:38 PM UTC