"mottle" poems
A Giraffe, with its
Long
Long
Long
Long
Long
Neck is looking down on me.
See him stretchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh up to those high-tree leaves
And grasp them with his massive tongue.
Two males are having a fight
To decide who will mate today.
They swing their necks at one another
Madly
Until one of them falls.
A battle captured all on video film.
The loser seems quite dead
But then comes round
And totters to his feet.
Magnificent creatures,
All mottle-flanked,
With tiny horns
And telescopic legs.
Giraffes!
Paul Butters
Jun 11, 2016
Jun 11, 2016 at 11:31 AM UTC
With satchel in his hand, he strode down the road,
The sun glinting against his eyes as it does with glass.
Up he crept to the cave of the monster, its rank abode,
And pulled the elixir from his satchel fast.
Trembling, his hands uncorked the bottle,
And released the liquid a'splashin onto the ground below;
The potion served to mottle,
The rock soon to blow.
He leapt from the cave entrance, down toward the road,
Away from the monster's ghastly abode,
And managed to escape sudden death,
As an explosion blasted from the cave's mouth like fiery breath.
The monster wailed loud as death strangled it,
A strange, bone-chilling, awful fit.
But like the cave, the monster was now dead,
And he could head back to his cabin to sleep in his bed.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 10:55 AM UTC
After one bite
Of grimy
Teeth sinking into
Mottle red (and green and brown)
And yellow skin and crisp
White flesh
An explosion of giraffes
Full of shrapnel
Chaos
All the colors
Gazelles jumping
Into and out of and through and around
Flaming hoops and elephants
And zebras and hurricanes with names
Names she never knew existed
And existence like a bolt
Of lightning struck the very heart of her
Churning her insides chaos
Theory and all the colors
Hyenas laughter
And painted ponies leaping out at her
Grinning as her insides
Cooked like thunder and she
Found herself
Screaming like a panther
Hiding under dappled leaves and strung out rain-flecked hair
Crying like a baby over
An apple core
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
Heaven has fallen,
The angels are bawling,
God is cremated,
Jesus is hated,
His throne surrounded by bottles.
Lucifer rots,
His evil blood clots,
Hell freezes solid
The mouth growing squalid,
Where blue lips doth mottle.
The humans in the middle
Intellectually twiddle
Twaddle their minds
Waiting for times
Eras that will not come
Prophecies undone.
The rapture was never,
The primates glimpse forever,
But alas, once again,
The apes now turn,
Deeply fearing death,
To the lies
Religious yearn.
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 6:30 PM UTC
She held him within her. A coiled mosaic, whirling on the precipice. His frame shook tumultuous, his skin the colour of autumn grey. The wetness from his eyes spilled against her soft fur. He pressed his lids tighter, as if to keep his tears from the world. Warmth pooled beneath their paws, a thick ichor that smelled of iron and salt.
The dusk receded, and he breathed his last.
Night left the world a husk. A slumber, cessation. In the still, she felt a chill gather within her, cruel and implacable. The forest stirred, with a restlessness only the dead knew. The barrows shrivelled to their skeleton frames. Death lurked in the furs of the pitch beast, in the mottle snares of the witherfang.
She ****** them all.
Her howl tore through the air, bright and gleaming. It thundered beneath the earth, reverberating through the bones of the long deceased. How had she once felt pride in that sound? A bitter rage roiled in her blood. It twisted the vessels of her body, and set her muscles to stone. She moved and shattered into a thousand shards, each one sharper than the last.
She grieved for two days. The soft contours she’d held his dying body against grew lean and taut. The hollows of her ribs had closed themselves around a seething stone, that filled her flesh bitter. She rose a new beast on the third day. Smarter, but crueller; wiser, but filled with rage; and with only one thought on her mind.
She would find the deceiver, and devour all he loved.
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 9:43 PM UTC
a swelling pocket of fat
over and over
the tongue shifts left and right
some nervous gag
mottle
other cascade
where nobody says a thing
well what do you give?
an open palm
a sick stupid wreath
Mar 4, 2019
Mar 4, 2019 at 8:06 PM UTC
The time of the shining of
Wind-summered grasses, has passed,
-To the lark-breast mottle-
The harvested skin of the
Senescent land
The candle-snatch gutter of
Hurrying wing sees
The last of the coin
That was minted in thatches
Of deepwood
Of latticing bramble
Of crumbling eve.
The mourn of the Moorland
Has feathered a will
With the clot of the Ash,
Where a heather of cinnabar
Freckles the splash of
a simmering tarn
As gravelling Easterlies
Peel the cling of
The verdigris fades,
Some twilight of sepia
Musters the pastel
of Wintering calm.
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 11:08 AM UTC
Take me back
Where all is muffled
Blanketed
Lights filtered through meshed pink
Sanctuary
Harsh sounds of existence slurred
Safe from harm
Ophelia, drowning in flowers
Escape a world I don't understand
Mottle my fingers I cannot see
Where I begin and the air ends
I wish to be this close to you again
Connected by a cord
That can never really be cut
Feed knowledge and experience
Into a pre-natal brain
Etch your wisdom into whorls
Thicken the pads on my fingers
Envelop me
The beginning and the end of my universe
My Dôn
Is it any wonder I cried when I left?
Take me back to a time before language
The only foetal words I know
Are the drum bass of my universe
I am, I am, I am,
And soon I will echo your confident staccato
I am, I am, I am
Okay.
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 7:22 AM UTC
Burning
Burn burn burn
turning around and around in a world
gone mad on illusion,
be glad to scrawl some truth
on the walls of self,
this prison we create for ourselves
endless as the space between things
atomic glances in the glaciers
of arctic reality, alone.
Alone and with you, just you
alone, alone with you, just you.
You don't exist, I am here, alone.
Loneliness the barricaded cliche;
a comfort from the complexity of Pandora cities,
lived network, passing moments, waste,
waste bucket lies and lives -
Cries in the sombre darkness of the city streets
heathens and homeless burning, dying
spice addicted fiend crying in empty
alleyways, and me alone, crying, dying
slowly, in this cage of my own creation,
the only thing that keeps me sane -
creation of hope, "delusion you dope" says
voice inside, burning bright demon.
Burn and fry, mottle and cascade downwards,
find yourself in the dirt of experience
and avert your gaze to the heavens.
What choice do we have?
The alternative burns and haunts my soul.
Endlessly, needlessly
Burn baby burn.
Apr 16, 2017
Apr 16, 2017 at 6:21 PM UTC
The tears fall and mottle the parchment
there is no ink to run
to smear
or distort
The stain of shapes, letters, words
are no longer present
to be deformed
or washed away
The instrument with which to write
no longer has use,
is no longer held
with such care,
such grace
The desk that supports the weight
of my futility
has now crumbled
in despair
The chair that held me
refuses to bear the weight
of my hollowness any longer
I've left behind
the room that is so empty
except for a distant echo
of thoughts
cultivated,
cherished
Only the view from the window remains the same
yet I do not stare in wonder
or for inspiration
I turn and walk away from it all.
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 5:44 PM UTC
Live, Fight, and Die;
But try, try to mottle the lines of the night;
The lines of Right versus Might, and the social norms,
passed down from new born to new born,
to see our repugnant state.
We, the sole bearers of a torch,
which was ignited by the past frames and constructs,
Carry a dying flame.
A flame, of hope and progress, chilled and quelled,
by the relentless and bitter chill of Man’s, no Our,
greed.
So, will you and I break the bonds and chains,
which were placed around our necks, when our eyes were shut
and our ears were muffed by our desperate hands,
the Chains that were placed to bond and bind our brains
to a "so called" normal, or formal, way of thought?
Shall we, hand over hand, climb against
the craggy grain of past ideologies?
Shall we fight, back to back, fist to fist, against
a multitude of trivialities that hide the true nature of our State?
Or, blindly, will we toil on, in a monotonous cycle of consumption,
devouring anything and everything placed in our reach,
never staring up to see what hand it is that guides us?
Apr 7, 2012
Apr 7, 2012 at 7:05 AM UTC
I love the stark beaches on your coast, soft sands turned grey in a storm. Clouds mottle sand the same color as skin. Waves soar and fall, opposite, dunes rise and plummet. A calm imitation of a wild sea.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
In the approaching twilight
My bedroom is a golden citadel
I hear the children playing like a
Song of many birds varied, ,mottle
Repeated cries and answers tireless
Before the coming of darkness. It is
A forever sound of busy happiness
Signifying nothing but eternal time
That the children know will never end.
Soon the darkness will call them home.
But why do I stay in my golden room
Listening. Why do I not go out and join
Them in their joy-because here I can hear
Their poetry; hear their joy; Be their poet
In the eternal present still I hear their cries
In the village of long ago I remember you
For my Sister Sue Remember me.
Jul 1, 2024
Jul 1, 2024 at 4:42 PM UTC
I felt the sting of nightshade bubble up inside me,
Once more, I cough up the bloodied Solanaceae.
Purged into my lap, budding with flesh,
Pallid petals ripe with Persian plum mottle, gored and fresh.
Racking my body in waves of herbaceous excruciation,
Crawling up my throat, clawing in botanical mutilation.
Lain out on the creased stone,
My macabre of a garden is blotted with the watercolour of my own.
Weary from retching, I stare at my withering ***** with distain,
I shrivel internally at the burden of mopping each and every stewed stain.
But I know I must clean the mess I've forged,
Because its nobody apart from me, who impulsively gorged.
Dec 12, 2024
Dec 12, 2024 at 2:00 PM UTC
My words
Your dreams
My swords
Your screams
My reasons
And your laughter
Different seasons
And our happy ever after
Everything was fake
With couple of lies
The decisions we make
Only lead us to dark sad cries
Hearts became hollow
And soul so empty
Averse, we follow
Even after turning twenty
Life is rude
And life is harsh
Like a mottle brood
Who stays in marsh
There is no love for one
And love for all
It's either said and done
Or nothing at all
I choose to be alone
And to stay on my side
Never sad or lone
Is now how life's roller coaster I ride
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 3:44 PM UTC
in this lasting thick sop of heat
people protect their dearest habitually
and who knows how long that shall last ?/
all acts are weighed upon/
the neighbourhood is rough/
the swelter raises all the gritty flavours
level with all our senses/
some spend time on the rooftops
but it’s not avoidable there/
tasks are monument :
the hateful
hurting
malnourished bodies
are there own enemy
a struggle to perform basic life/
the fever beat breeds the pollution
and the pollution is solvent
in the population/
it’s a barbed experience
working to perspire/
we’re cast where we began :
occupied animals
and when the day sinks
then begin the dog nights/
people are game for a fight/
of all this
i take my leave/
i seek to study/
i want to shut down/
i need decay/
i’ve stalked from this blazing environment/
i’ve gotten far underground/
removed a grate
from our buildings basement/
followed rungs to a cool drainage tunnel/
not far along that I discovered a hunch in the cities material
edged through a crack/
ever downwards by touch................/
i’ve found a damp corner
within a ruin
beneath the ground
within another city
built over once
and then again by the current inhabited one/
this is location/
from the summers heat
and from the social wheeling/
Quick to go fungal
I adjust my body temperature
and mottle the skin of my stowed carrier/
I regard my blood beats
and concentrate
marking them slower and slower/
I retract to operate on minimal features/
I become a dominance of my thought stream
and narrow it to almost nothing/
I’m a short stop from from coma or organic breakdown
I am now dedicated ,
thoroughly ,
to the one study
Jun 26, 2019
Jun 26, 2019 at 7:00 PM UTC
Could I
carry that
for you?
The softness of it,
so still in my hand,
a dead bird.
But I know it must feel
like dark matter in yours;
too heavy
- just, bright -
to com-
prehend.
.
There's something a bit
dusty about us;
if we dared to be
cute,
we would be bunnies.
The only thing
rabbit here
is our hab(b)it
of hiding
in broad daylight.
We turn invisible.
The gods cannot see us.
Otherwise,
you mottle and split
like a cobra,
so much
shed skin
and foreign,
new bodies.
.
I shudder at 'was.'
I have scratched
500 days
in the wall calendar,
and I just say 'was, was, was,'
like it's
the breath
of life,
(something precious
to buttery mosaics
and grieving gods,)
'I was skinny.
I was nice.
I was happy.'
N o w y o u ' r e d o i n g i t t o o.
Your hands are at your own throat
and you've scraped your skull clean,
inside and out.
Please put down your knife,
we will not eat our hearts
tonight.
I brought home icecream.
Get your spoon.
.
I think I made this.
This shadow that chose you,
following you around,
speaking in tongues;
and the guilt
is so much more
than bruises and string-chokings,
slamming your toe in the door
when I was two,
(snake sp(l)its, in the nail,
to this very day,)
bumping away at night
when we were empty-handed
and sorrowful,
dead morning glories
crying at dawn.
(Ladies whispering:
"so young, so sad")
Never has there been such a
disjointed thought
as trying to be good,
for caring for your mother and
so
slowly
drowning her
in our specifics
and demands
to inherit
something other than
mistakes.
.
We are her murders
and her children,
you and I -
brother.
Apr 25, 2020
Apr 25, 2020 at 10:43 PM UTC