"moulting" poems
She left Reno
in a satin slip
the color of hot coins
pouring from slots,
wearing chewed-up tennis shoes,
mirrors multiplying her,
the marquee burning out
letter by letter,
a hush pressed between her teeth
as if saving the last note.
I followed,
a gangly shadow,
mother’s voice in my ear:
"life is not a freeway exit."
But she was the exit.
She drove west
through a glittering throat.
In Tonopah she was a waitress,
red stains on her wrists,
sleeves tugged low,
coffee pouring thin as blood.
In Barstow she was a sun-bleached Madonna,
halo blistered, mouth lit in stained glass.
At a gas station in Needles
shimmering into a coyote’s shadow
and slipped behind the pumps.
Then movement along the fence,
low, quick—
gone again.
Casinos blinked like electric relics.
Truckers called her sugar,
greedy hands counting her ribs
as if she was the paycheck
sweating in their fist,
but she slipped away each time,
her silhouette already moulting-
a serpent skin, a smoke-trail,
a saint’s shadow burning off the wall.
By Malibu, the night
had softened to velvet.
The pier at Zuma
leaned into the Pacific
like a broken bridge.
She sang to me—
low, cracked—
then let the slip fall.
Her body cut into the dark tide,
no disguise.
I waded in after her,
ankles bruised by rock.
Water lit with jellyfish,
each pulse a warning.
I stopped where it deepened,
felt the pull take hold.
No exit left,
just the Pacific’s mouth
closing around her.
Sep 1, 2025
Sep 1, 2025 at 8:08 PM UTC
king of the sea,
with a rigorous exoskeleton peeling away
moulting causes such distress,
exposed to the thrashing undertow of the sea
and enemies
who protects you?
a callow arthropod poised on fractured shells
it isn’t your father,
balancing a bottle of brandy between his lips
or your confidant,
skidding his tires across your mind
a starfish tried,
she threw her arms round your shell
as you added new muscles underneath
she stuck her tube feet in her claws
as you brittled her skin
she said I love you
and you retreated
when you are 70
and clamouring the floor
put your arms behind your back to beckon her to you
try –
she is the sea and no one owns her.
Oct 16, 2016
Oct 16, 2016 at 3:38 PM UTC
left cup runneth over/
right cup half empty/
if I add my left cup size to my right cup size what will I get/ DD + D = DDD/I've never been great at math/but this is no/miscalculation/
I am 36 DD confined to a 36 D bra/
(D)Disgorges over the underwire/
D--you flaccid beach ball/I wish I could reinflate you/part my mouth around your nipple/and/
breathe/
no one can tell/unless I wear a tight bodice/then/you are/obnoxiously evident/
I am afraid of introducing you to my future boyfriend/will he still want to undress me/will he still want to make love to me/
will he still want to touch you/
you/
sea urch/in/the palm of my hand/
even I am hesitant to hold you close to me/
you/
strangulated bagpipe/
moulting pompom/ ****
what's that spell/
what's that spel/
what's that spe/
what's that sp/
what's that s/
what's that/
what is that/
what/
who are you/
you/
waning gibbous/
my metaphors wane, also/it turns out there are only so many euphemisms that can be assigned to an/ill-proportioned breast/
itsy bitsy titsy/
you make me/
sad/
you/
teardrop defying the laws of gravity/
or/
is it the laws of gravity that defy the teardrop/so that it never falls into/
place/
I've noticed only/beautiful/things/
fall/
shooting stars/
autumn/
my left *****
Oct 18, 2020
Oct 18, 2020 at 5:19 PM UTC
This thing, the words and all? I was trying on a new skin.
It was made of the old -the familiar, too, but transformed.
Something added that could take root,
Take me out from the norm.
Take on a new identity.
Perform.
Squinting at a light, held at arm’s length:
My own spotlight.
So you could watch me act it all out,
Over and over, forever on the page.
but nothing ends as it began.
My troubles, my worries, my lust, my greed,
All fictionalized and petty.
Disgust and shame.
Anger and fear,
Are not advisable
Unless they bring about change.
Even those, now left behind.
Moulted.
Shedding my old skin.
Toughening up the new.
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 10:17 PM UTC
( five new haiku )
1
Overcast
*Rain painting the streets
Colours lost on lonesome roads
Reflects only grey*
2
Dry Season
*Question sails in air
Above late summer flowers
Lone white butterfly*
3
Things Mounting
*Before hurricanes
Wind stirs about treeless plains
Little things matter*
4
Salt beds
*Great oceans moulting
Lost weight of life giving grace
Scales of dead fishes*
5
Caroling
*Little angels come
Alł throughout winter they sing
In tree without leaves*
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 1:49 PM UTC
turn into a tight ball
stand over the gravity ball
allow me to melt into it
down....
down....
enter the space and see the bright light
this place and that place is the same
just, we are on an existence thwarted by human vision
we see what the space threads permit
but there's something beyond this
there is more than this, it can be felt in the melting
it's only molecules in the fray
small electric bursts in mauve and orange flickers
I am nearly ready for moulting, which needs to occur
I am afraid but I push forth into
the bright light
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 12:02 AM UTC
Like a snake unhinges its jaw—pink cheek exposed—
to something warm and whole, I unhinge you over and over and over again in my mind when I need to shed away every time I told you I would visit,
when I need to shed away that night we drank a cheap six pack in my tangle of blankets,
when I need to shed away the songs you wrote about blue eyes,
when I need to leave only the raw, scaly bits of you—the bits I scraped away at and made real, not the girl four hours away with the name I always mispronounce,
not the pieces she only barely notices when you leave her side, or the pieces you left for me to find, scattered on my windowsill.
I unhinge the moment your forked tongue first formed the words “I love you,"
the day I took pictures of you playing my guitar with the missing string—you said you didn’t need it anyway.
I think about the wrongs we righted when I slept in your car with your hand on my head, and I know I can’t come close to chewing our problems over, so I swallow them whole.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 4:36 PM UTC
*( five haiku )
1
Overcast
Rain painting the streets
Colours lost on lonesome roads
Reflects only grey
2
Dry Season
Question sails in air
Above late summer flowers
Lone white butterfly
3
Things Mounting
Before hurricanes
Wind stirs about treeless plains
Little things matter
4
Salt beds
Great oceans moulting
Lost weight of life giving grace
Scales of dead fishes
5
Caroling
Little angels come
Alł throughout winter they sing
In tree without leaves*
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 1:55 PM UTC
I live in a world of many colors
Of many sounds
And many names
Where people seem to care
But turn out to be the same
I live in a world difficult to tame
I live in a world of pseudo equality
Where declarations are plentiful
But work remains unchanged
Where harsh words take but a second to say
But the impact lasts for many days
I live in a world confused and deranged
I live in a world plunged into darkness
Who boast of immense openness
But remain rigid as rocks
Where nuances are seen and heard with pretences of interest
But internally cast aside with scorn
I live in a world of trickery and false talk
I live in a world of schemes and conspiracies
Where happiness is transformed to hatred without a backward glance
Where creatures with human names
Lead lives devoid of love
I live in a world offering no second chances
I live in a world where only miracles can occur
Where brilliance blossoms desperately like the tired asphalt flowers
Where specks of gold reside among hearts carved out of iron
I live in a world moulting within the hour
I live in a world of imperfect delights
Where wields to satiate one's moaning stomach
Overpower pleas to fill one's grieving soul
Where cosmopolitan societies
Shape answer-seeking personalities
I live in a world, incomplete but whole
I live in a world triggered by cataclysm
Where earth-shaking catapults are inspired
By steadfast truth that still exists
Where the written word still provides more solace
Than any gruesome battle
I live in a world where happiness persists
I live in a world of humanity
Where blood flows rich with eternal adventure and free thought
Where life and death is but a transition
I live in a world of eternal love and change
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
*Great oceans moulting
Lost weight of life giving grace
Scales of dead fishes*
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 7:19 PM UTC
Today upon these very fields
Meadows of green and flowers yield
As breeze stops dead and from the leaves
Comes a young girl in khaki green.
Her dress is light, and her song is sweet
As she picks her way on dainty feet.
But she is not the first to trek
Through fresh-scented woods with curling breath
In khaki green amidst the sea
Of indigo and white and brightest green.
For as she scrabbles amongst dirt and stone
She finds in her hand to be a bone.
Unknowing of the man that shed it like
A moulting woodlark born for flight.
Unknowing too is she of the dew
That clings to blades of grass as slew
Were brothers of flesh and blood and heart.
What once was clouded red is glass.
She rises as the night descends,
Skips home with grubby hands and dress
But she is the only one in khaki green
Whom after those woods was ever seen.
The forest left to whistle and sway
Waits for the girl tomorrow-day
When she will escape its clutches once more
Dancing on the graves of twenty-four.
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 6:16 AM UTC
I’m fine with the fact that each second dies as soon as it’s born,
birthing and killing me along with it.
As the man-made measuring mechanism
tells us that with each moment, there is
a change,
So I, too, metamorphose
with each tick and tock.
A death of self- a senescing-
timely, and repetitive.
The moulting of an identity that once existed.
The world giving me a new opportunity
to decompose, contribute to the carbon cycle,
yes, again,
turn me to CO2
release me into the soil and let a plant grow where I stood.
Every day
with endless opportunities to have my own
renaissance.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
I left hairs on your pillow
‘accidentally’,
in the hope that just once,
you might dream about me.
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 8:35 AM UTC
'i can breathe, i can breathe!'
i scream it into the air because there's space to scream it.
grass and trees and water as far as the eye can see,
even turbines spinning slowly,
i'm telling you now i have never felt like there was so much air before this moment.
i move upstream through the running water just to remind myself that this is real life and there are still difficulties
i laugh to myself though - it's never been this easy to bring myself back down to earth, because there's so ******* much of it
my vision is blurred from wet glasses. i'm delighted. the stress lines are melting from my face with the rain. i'm unashamed. i don't think i've ever been this free of pain. aaand hodor's howling from the top of the hill like a tiny wolf again.
side by side i walk through heather with my mother and i remember lantern-lit martinmas walks when i was four feet tall or thereabouts, and with the peppered scent of brambles and moulting leaves, i'm a child again and the leaves are mine to crunch and kick.
we pick wildflowers for the kitchen and blackberries for jam. we find ourselves going to extraordinary lengths to get the best ones, which of course, are always just out of reach. it becomes a quest for the unobtainables. but we come home with stained hands, faces aglow and two kilos.
bernie learns to fetch the ball and drop it and i almost cry because i love him so much. bernie investigates the deeper water of the river because daisy is swimming and i almost cry because i love him so much. bernie lays his damp head on my legs after a walk and falls straight to sleep and i almost cry because i love him so much.
the mist lies on top of the mountain like a protective blanket and i feel myself become one with the mud. i am the mud. the mud is me. i am a mud lady now. ever had muddy water flow over the top of your wellies and not feel remotely bothered? better than yoga.
never thought i'd ever be wishing for a wetsuit but here we are.
oh and, cold sunshine. gorgeous, crisp cold sunshine.
Nov 25, 2019
Nov 25, 2019 at 9:01 PM UTC
The road where I passed today
Was not the same as yesterday.
The driver took the shortest route – the easiest.
Moulting:
The snake shedding its skin.
Changes, I said to myself. Changes.
There were three of us left inside the vehicle.
Two faces I am familiar with – that of a woman and a man.
Science’s skin lapping that of religion’s
Stitching of the skin – woman.
Cutting of the skin – man.
Now, I’m thinking of Africa.
Now, I’m thinking of Jews.
I told the driver to stop on the other side.
I lifted the lock, raised the door open, and went out.
Waiting for an idea to struck:
An idea -- that a mouse should cross my path,
An idea -- that a cat would sit on its favorite spot.
And I would say: It’s too early.
The sky, after reading a letter from the sun, blushes pink.
“Look at her skin,” I would tell you, “pink.”
Reading is listening. We listen to what we read.
Reading and listening to their voices:
Their voices have their own skin.
Irezumi.
Traditional Japanese tattooing – an art.
I remembered you. And your skin.
She – the mountain woman.
Perhaps, they can make her a National Artist.
The living art.
The living skin.
Jul 26, 2016
Jul 26, 2016 at 9:17 PM UTC
I have never been so depressed
as I was
when stepped on by an elephant
I have never been so down
as I was
when attacked by a moulting duck
I have never been as shocked
as I was
when wiring that plug as I did
I never felt so abandoned
as I was
when she passed and left me here
When I think about her
I don't believe I will ever feel alive again
but I am older and will join her soon
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 10:55 AM UTC
My skin has been
too tight, too old, suffocating
too rough scaly calloused
you dont know my struggle
trying to rupture it
gasping from every pore
writhing sweating shaking
silently screaming.
In the dead of the night
struggling shedding moulting,
I shall emerge breathing free
young and shiny
a new me
in my new world, new skin.
in my newfound sheen,
I shall at last smile
Tomorrow's sun too will smile
on greener canopies
and verdant vistas
on gurgling streams
and sloping roofs
on shoeflowers and 'mukkootti' and 'thumba'
and on happily jobless cicadas
with their day-in day-out whirrings
and on idle summer koels
with their throats drunk from
too many sweet mangoes
Tomorrow's sun will smile
on men glistening with sweat
celebrating life
with the heady rhythms
of a thousand chendas
and caparisoned elephants
in ancient temples
under ancient banyan trees
and my ancient deities
will exult goose-pimpled
at the ancient crescendos
of the thousand drums
and I'll be goose-pimpled too
in my new young skin
with its newfound sheen.
You'll see me, maybe
in my folded-up mundu
walking freely among the paddies
or languidly swimming in the streams
I shall sing like the koel
whirr like the cicada
I shall kiss all the flowers
of my new home
and bring you its bouquet, maybe.
or maybe I shall sit still
under an ancient banyan
and pretend I'm an anthill.
Mar 16, 2022
Mar 16, 2022 at 8:30 PM UTC
He is in the sea of poetry
he is running he know it is somewhere
all that is written and known
since this first scream
since the first burst of light
who announces the whiteness
for the other dream or nightmare
with the verses he embroiders forgetfulness
the words are a bit of his skin and soul
with the moulting each verse
is draped with a satin layer of the skin
who gets lost in making the verse
and after finishing the poem
his soul finds another mask
to continue in comedy
the poet makes the poem
as does the worm its silk
to avoid the specter of death
it seems to him
in any case, this reassures him
it takes beautiful verses
to make great comedy
that is an adult game
old kids when they cheat
in the game they become
hollow and vain!
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 5:03 AM UTC
Show me choosing the choice that leads me back to my heart
Show me moulting my skin every single spring every time I wash my hair because we are beings made of water and water, by nature, is in motion
No wonder I am most alive when my heart is pounding my soul stretching lungs full of sea air
Show me the beauty of living a thousand lives in one breath
Show me we are made for this life
Jun 11, 2022
Jun 11, 2022 at 12:36 PM UTC