"nettles" poems
A sea of nettles and nails that scream their injustice at you
People who seem like they've shaken off their prickly outsides and their hatred
Turning to congratulate them
Embrace them
Before you find the truth beneath their pillowy covering
Nails can be blunted and nettles can be softened but they remain below your surface,
Waiting for the right moment to be sharpened and grow back their stings
I see your injustice and I raise you my peace
It hurts to tear out your nails and to burn off those nettles
But oh god does it hurt more to walk your tender, soft body through that forest of pain
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 3:36 PM UTC
Two boys
and girls
unclothed each other
simply at a picnic
flush with wine
alongside
sun-flecked trees.
The girls,
easy as the
forest round,
burned,
delicious,
as the boys
eager and nervous
in unequal measure
partly gave up
concealing
their joys
at forgetting
or remembering
in flickers
their bare bodies.
It went on
over nettles
and half-hours
and clambered
trees and
photos taken
almost formally
(on film,
of course).
And boyish lust,
at first sinuous,
a darting tongue,
began to
soften against,
for instance,
the sheer,
unthinkable
texture
of the two
girls carved
now backward
over the bough
of a storm-felled elm.
And there
in the embers
of evening
they learned
to thrill originally
at the vast,
gorgeous
and astonishing
irrelevance
of what
might happen next.
Jan 26, 2011
Jan 26, 2011 at 7:05 AM UTC
Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
Where my dark lover lies.
Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
At grey moonrise.
Love, hear thou
How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling,
Ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling,
Then as now.
Dark too our hearts, O love, shall lie and cold
As his sad heart has lain
Under the moongrey nettles, the black mould
And muttering rain.
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You're so happy to see that they've got burn marks where their nettles were and scars from lost nails
And then they turn around and you see the poison ivy growing up their spine
It's just lonely
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 7:04 PM UTC
Gazing through the tallest
green nettles
I realized they do
not bite me
Cause it was not the day
for stings and aching
Cause i had the black
mountain boots
and a heart
on my
dim
dark
sport gown
My hands reached
upwards
the Heavens
towards
the white yello
Crown
of
Elder's Abundance
Where Scented Blossoms
Coloured my skin
And exposed my life lines
After
The coolest tangerine
Lemonade
I sat on the black soil
squished young grasses
and found the
tiniest
snail
baby
My palm was a giant Plato
For it's snailish leg
On the left one
he was without weight
portruding forth
to his destination
Is it possible that
his house was
3,5 mm
long
Isn't it cute
that when streched
was 7 mm
at lenght
Visible horns
like 1 mm
and half of it
The upper
The downward
Twotwo
Four
What are you looking at
My lines or me
If he climbs from my
left palm on the right one
It's ment to be
I'll visit the seaside
Fibbonacci House Spiralled
Inner layers with colours
outer still
and translucent
Is it possible
this tiny snail
thinks about me
It didn't work
It remained
on my heart's side
Then I moved this
cutest creature
on my right palm
Little little snail
you're not a match
to squeeze
From the right to the left
I thought to myself
he is she
i don't know
snail's so young
for sure it doesn't seek another snail
To cherrish and love
Yet
It
Climbed on my left thumb
Beautiful in motion
As a revolution
For better days
It is my heart's side
My vision became
Sharp
Clouds
Waffed all around on the deepest blue
White and puffy
Magickal
Metallic
Dragonfly
Emerged out of
Nowhere
Had landed on a spider web
cocoon
on the Verge
of Enchanted Forest
Where grave monument resides
Dragonfly
was in the air
the invisible wings fluttered
My sharp vision
focused on
another three
Blueish
camerades
They don't need los zapatos
They are not obsessed as
Imelda was
And i wasn't thinking
about that at all
This words are for you:
thank you for the music
but the dragonflies
buterflies I love
most.
They were near my
heart,
one caressed among
tall grasses
one butterfly
also
not in oslo
and
Fibbonnaci Friend
who gave me this
Sharp vision
To see the magic
revealing all
around.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 5:14 PM UTC
As poppies drip blood red petals
Among the fields where souls do roam
A silenced voice, away from home
Buried deep with twisted metals
Khaki men, are dead and rotting
As poppies drip blood red petals
Overgrown with rats and nettles
Men and women stood reflecting
A resting place to end the fight
In peaceful slumber they settle
As poppies drip blood red petals
Weathered cadavers all bleached white
Depressions fade, vista settles
Bodies and branches both stripped bare
Once passionate men, showed they care
As poppies drip blood red petals.
© 27/6/2012
Sep 4, 2012
Sep 4, 2012 at 3:24 AM UTC
Mayday: two came to field in such wise :
'A daisied mead', each said to each,
So were they one; so sought they couch,
Across barbed stile, through flocked brown cows.
'No pitchforked farmer, please,' she said;
'May cockcrow guard us safe,' said he;
By blackthorn thicket, flower spray
They pitched their coats, come to green bed.
Below: a fen where water stood;
Aslant: their hill of stinging nettle;
Then, honor-bound, mute grazing cattle;
Above: leaf-wraithed white air, white cloud.
All afternoon these lovers lay
Until the sun turned pale from warm,
Until sweet wind changed tune, blew harm :
Cruel nettles stung her angles raw.
Rueful, most vexed, that tender skin
Should accept so fell a wound,
He stamped and cracked stalks to the ground
Which had caused his dear girl pain.
Now he goes from his rightful road
And, under honor, will depart;
While she stands burning, venom-girt,
In wait for sharper smart to fade.
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ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.
blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.
[her bloated tongue]
a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
for funsies.
for keepsies.
a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.
the woods aren’t haunted.
you are haunted.
you are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.
[treefort aflame]
the seasons furrow/
/ the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.
[dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]
pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
[toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.
[restless armless girls in orange sunsets]
girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.
boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?
the glow of an eerie crystal
(continued…)
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
Damaged trust and marriage schemes
Held hostage in each others' dreams
Pinned to walls but flailing still
Forgotten values, failing wills
True love waits, we tell ourselves
True love gladly stacks the shelves
True love sets conditions and
True love does the dishes and
Slowly, slowly, we forget
Just why we're here and who we met
Another notch in wrinkled frowns
Where I keep getting lost and found
In roller-coaster ups and downs
I'm lost and lost and lost and found
Missing flights and toxic tongues
Catharsis found in tar-filled lungs
I lost myself in who I wasn't
And in what true love does and doesn't
Not quite gaslit, not quite safe
Playing back the ancient tape
We envy death for constancy-
Besmirching our own consciences
We forgo our emoluments
Too traumatized by precedents
But hush you tell me, no one knows
The pretzel-bending ways we grow
Forever twisting round and round
Lost and lost and lost and found
Now freaking out, now breaking down
Now glaciers found in evening gowns
Now agonizing 'Who am I?'s
Now dying fire in your eyes
At last the sunset settles debts
We tally up our last regrets
Relenting to incessant ghosts
Abandoning essential posts
'Til all that's left is loss and hurt
It burns and burns and burns and burns
And now I choke on orders filled
And mourn alone the youth we killed
I scrape the comb across my nettles
Pricking feelings, bleeding mettle
Finally free from ups and downs,
I find myself on solid ground
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 10:52 PM UTC
my belly grows the size of a bag of apricots
there is a will at the bottom of a lake that needs retrieving
the car sank but the body made it to the shore and changed her name by midnight
come springtime the ice melts and the water is back
crawling upon shy ankles
there are growing pains who find a home between nettles and
the hives of adobe wasps
i never could cohabitate with nature
when they ask at parties where i've been
things that are at rest stay at rest
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 6:20 PM UTC
Moss, and evergreens.
Pale azaleas and vines that grow tall with the warmth of spring.
I hope morning glories sprout their soft wings with the rise of the sun, light filtering through branches of leaves that hang so delicately above.
I hope for milk thistle,
Venus fly traps and nettles.
Sprouts pushing from the earth with a grace that’s invisible to the human eye.
Even with the greatest patience.
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 1:07 AM UTC
Mother Eagle soars, our glistening bodies once dared to lie.
Our spring love, her wing takes flight—hands find sweetness within our thighs.
Mother Eagle, ever watchful, for the day love flies—goodbye.
Your laugh was a fawn, soft-footed and shy,
Caressing my ******* our fingers explore sweet-shivering highs.
Mother Eagle soars, our glistening bodies once dared to lie.
A million ****** star-eyes count ecstasy’s cries—
Their hush reveals parted lips where our pleasure flies.
Mother Eagle, ever watchful, for the day love flies—goodbye.
Dawn awakes, finds our secret cove, wet ******* kissed by butterflies.
Jays echo our love-cries, our breathless replies.
Mother Eagle soars, our glistening bodies once dared to lie.
Now nettles creep where we once soared the skies,
Moss fingers our secrets, deep as memories dry.
Mother Eagle, ever watchful, for the day love flies—goodbye.
We find our secret cove again, and you ask why.
We strip, we kiss, our untamed passion never dies.
Mother Eagle soars, our glistening bodies once dared to lie.
Mother Eagle, ever watchful, for the day love flies—goodbye.
Jul 1, 2025
Jul 1, 2025 at 2:44 PM UTC
Among the orchard weeds, from every search,
Snugly and sure, the old hen’s nest is made,
Who cackles every morning from her perch
To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;
Who lays her washing by, and far and near
Goes seeking all about from day to day,
And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;
But still the cackling pullet lays away.
The boy on Sundays goes the stack to pull
In hopes to find her there, but naught is seen,
And takes his hat and thinks to find it full,
She’s laid so long so many might have been.
But naught is found and all is given o’er
Till the young brood come chirping to the door.
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Over the horizon, lost in confusion,
came the sad night, pregnant with stars.
I, like the bearded mage of the tales,
knew the language of stones and flowers.
I learned the secrets of melancholy,
told by cypresses, nettles and ivy;
I knew the dream from lips of nard,
sang serene songs with the irises.
In the old forest, filled with its blackness,
all of them showed me the souls they have;
the pines, drunk on aroma and sound;
the old olives, burdened with knowledge;
the dead poplars, nests for the ants;
the moss, snowy with white violets.
All spoke tenderly to my heart
trembling in threads of rustling silk
where water involves motionless things,
like a web of eternal harmony.
The roses there were sounding the lyre,
oaks weaving the gold of legends,
and amidst their virile sadness
the junipers spoke of rustic fears.
I knew all the passion of woodland;
rhythms of leaves, rhythms of stars.
But tell me, oh cedars, if my heart
will sleep in the arms of perfect light!
I know the lyre you prophesy, roses:
fashioned of strings from my dead life.
Tell me what pool I might leave it in,
as former passions are left behind!
I know the mystery you sing of, cypress;
I am your brother of night and pain;
we hold inside us a tangle of nests,
you of nightingales, I of sadness!
I know your endless enchantment, old olive tree,
yielding us blood you extract from the Earth,
like you, I extract with my feelings
the sacred oil
held by ideas!
You all overwhelm me with songs;
I ask only for my uncertain one;
none of you will quell the anxieties
of this chaste fire
that burns in my breast.
O laurel divine, with soul inaccessible,
always so silent,
filled with nobility!
Pour in my ears your divine history,
all your wisdom, profound and sincere!
Tree that produces fruits of the silence,
maestro of kisses and mage of orchestras,
formed from Daphne's roseate flesh
with Apollo's potent sap in your veins!
O high priest of ancient knowledge!
O solemn mute, closed to lament!
All your forest brothers speak to me;
only you, harsh one, scorn my song!
Perhaps, oh maestro of rhythm, you muse
on the pointlessness of the poet's sad weeping.
Perhaps your leaves, flecking by the moonlight,
forgo all the illusions of spring.
The delicate tenderness of evening,
that covered the path with black dew,
holding out a vast canopy to night,
came solemnly, pregnant with stars.
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Tea stained blotches
Slowly spread across
thick green leaves
as July is pulled into
August. Fat blackberries
Are scattered into hedgerows of
Cow parsley.
Brambles reach out their forked
Fingers and nettles swallow the pathways.
I am looking forward to autumn
When I am no longer in a busy emerald city
But instead in cool quiet
Trudging through golden bracken.
Jul 25, 2022
Jul 25, 2022 at 11:29 AM UTC
the snow has melted
in a midwinter thaw
exposing all the lies
you left so carelessly
in the garden
i see them scattered about
before the breeze
as i look out the kitchen window
i catch them in the yard
trying to pretend that
no one can see them
where they rest.
something has led us
to this day
chasing your lies
out on the lawn
cleaning up after you
(again)
but if we left them
until the spring
what kind of bitter
**** might grow
to choke the garden
with their nettles
Dec 14, 2011
Dec 14, 2011 at 6:35 PM UTC
You will know the house,
Caught up in a spell of tales played out for a century or more
Within earshot of whispering catacombs
*** mortuis in lingua mortua’
You can’t miss it –
Architecturally complex, ornate with ormolu,
Elevated, enigmatic, a work of art.
You’ll be enchanted
But take heed, its façade will beguile you.
There is no sweetness of honeysuckle,
No singing of ascending larks to embolden the heart.
The plot is strewn with hen-bane, stinging nettles, snakeroot.
Generations tell of a skinny hag feeding on innocence,
A path scattered with ashes of children
Whisked away with a broom of silver.
Don’t dare to stray beyond its palisade of porous bones.
Don’t bide your time admiring its guilded thistle.
Appreciate if you will, this well-crafted masterpiece from several angles,
then make a hasty escape to Viktor’s Great Gate at the end of the walk.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2011
Jul 16, 2011
Jul 16, 2011 at 8:56 AM UTC
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
Her hair was plastered to her face,
Her scarf, enveloping her like a python.
Hot, salty tears ran down her cheeks.
She held out her arms to me.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
Bolting the doors with an anxious expression,
I pulled her close to me and whispered in her ear.
Bullets of tears pelted my shoulder,
I held on tight.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
The soothing, hot sponge tingled her tender skin,
The alcohol attacked like an armada of nettles.
The hands of the sobbing carcass violently shook,
Droplets of red ink soiled my hands.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
Bandaged up - the wound was blinded,
A mummified image.
I gave a watery smile and she was guided along towards the path of the shining star;
She rested, and I never let go of her hand.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
She came to me at two thirty,
Covered in cuts and bruises.
Lei era al sicuro
©Maniba Kiani , 28/11/13
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
In a tiny allotment right next to the zoo
A miniature jungle was planted and grew
The flora was dense and the air became hot
But confined to a tidy rectangular plot
An unthinkable duo of creatures converged
And it's said that a spanking new species emerged
For a curious beast was reportedly seen
Roaming and munching on anything green
Make haste! Away! It's the Buffagorilla!
A shredder of lettuce and cereal killer
With hooves at the front and hands at the rear
The Buffagorilla is near!
It shambles about at the darkest of hours
On hedges it crunches and bunches of flowers
On daffolil bulbs and petunia petals
With hearty aplomb on a cluster of nettles
Covertly perusing with maximum hush
It can wander through gardens disguised as a bush
No carrot or parsnip is safe in its bed
And the marrows are quaking in vegetable dread
Depart! Retreat! It's the Buffagorilla!
The broccoli butcher and vegetable killer
With ape like features and horns of a steer
The Buffagorilla is near!
So if you hear a mention of butternut theft
Or notice a garden, all bare and bereft
Insure your potatoes for damage and loss
Give the salad a purely precautionary toss
For a creature is roaming the byway and track
With its legs at the front and its arms at the back
And it might be your gooseberries or chervil he spies
So I beg you take heed as I once more advise
Be gone! Take flight! It's the Buffagorilla!
The strawberry napper and cucumber killer
Just hide in your cellar and steer well clear
The Buffagorilla is near!
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 7:07 PM UTC
KICKING THE BUCKET
The moon has fallen
asleep in a bucket
can't get back out despite
trying to slide over the rim.
It trembles as a train
thunders past midnight.
A child tries to catch it
its tiny hand plunging
through another dimension
through to its nothingness.
The moon takes its chance and
escapes to the sky with a splash.
It's all gone now
( the barn of course )
but the house...the child...that moon
are no longer to be found.
Strange to think
a house can die.
A tree enters through
the kitchen window
lays
its head upon a table.
The bedroom
is without its roof.
A door still stands
without its walls.
It bangs in the breeze
a surreal morse code.
The living room is home
to a family of nettles.
A sofa moulders
a new line in zombie furniture.
A hare stands upon a chair
barely able to hold itself together.
One of the chair's legs
genuflects to a sunset.
The hare hops upon
the rotting table top
enters the tree's head
and leaves upon its branches.
Somehow the bucket
survives.
Still standing outside
the outhouse.
It is full of storm
right to the brim.
It holds within itself
the moon of now.
Trains no longer
thunder by.
I, that child
now - this man
let the moon
splash through my man
before throwing it
into the night's sky.
Always wanted to do that
before I kicked the bucket.
Aug 13, 2018
Aug 13, 2018 at 6:42 PM UTC
he is gone....
night's dark
shadows flit
and shake,
shadow breezes
sing of past
love,
when i kissed him
our love was a bowl
of exquisite rose,
lust ripped at our
bones sunk into
them like a gold
sun's bloom,
my heart remembers
him like a grey ghost
of the past,
worn and unholy,
my love for him
is still a whisper
in the grass,
my love for him,
and only him,
is water and fire,
fire of ghosts that
melt with love,
water of love that
drowns in pools of
steel
for what is forgotten
reaching down to catch
an invisible hand
i am an acrobat
remembering heaven
and love,
a leaf on the winding
wind, incredibly brittle,
for these nettles
i walked in still
sting as i sigh
for his name....
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 6:51 AM UTC
Petals, oh these metals.
They fall,
Paling.
Blackened.
Dyed crimson.
A celebratory death dance,
I have found a new advance.
And the brilliant yellow sun,
How it slinks in the night!
So comfortable,
I have left it behind.
Toxic were the tendrils
that kept me where it stood.
A million stinging nettles,
In my heart, they took root.
The pink quills of Cyanea,
the futility of their purpose.
They don't always wither away,
So I've set them all aflame.
Romeo's sheath, Hermes' fool-
Treating my human tendencies as a tool.
Forget this fragility we call love,
Cut the strings and rise above.
Past the smoke and ashes,
it will come clearer through these lashes.
If my woven words fail to reach you,
Nothing else will ever do.
Dec 13, 2018
Dec 13, 2018 at 8:15 PM UTC
Along a winding meadow way
Circuitous and pebble strewn
Towards a brook and down a slope
As morning sun outshines the moon
An expectation clogs the air
And all about the flowers turn
To face a wave of tidal light
To catch ablaze but not to burn
A dusky fragrance lingers still
And gathers calm as mercury
In solemn spots beneath the boughs
It lies in perpetuity
The weaving breeze is powerless
And banished by the canopy
Abiding there a myriad
Of all of natures panoply
Drift along now deeper still
A clearing basks amid the shade
An isolated paradise
A lonely little woodland glade
Where early spring regains the lead
And ferns uncurl a welcome hand
The nettles bare their jagged teeth
And offer up a reprimand
A dragonfly takes up my path
And leads me into humid heat
She weaves amid the reaching grass
And safely guides my straying feet
Between the rocks and rabbit holes
That litter my vicinity
The creatures in my path retreat
All sensing my proximity
A fallen trunk now blocks my course
Like driftwood on the shoreline, beached
Its peeling bark is spiraling
And pale in the sunlight, bleached
Enfolded in its limbs I am
As if they shaped themselves to me
As though a plan of ages hatched
And formed a place for me to be
**
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
Pure sweetness from natures *****
It's true taste magnified by its beauty.
A Rose among nettles
Even a sample comes from a dreamscape of perfection.
Fresh from the combs of bee's,
A honey so thick,
An aroma so beautiful
It encompasses the mind
With the likeness of heaven itself.
Sugary sweet,
Like when two tongues meet
In a matrimonial ceremony of love.
There is no sweetness
Like the sweetness of
Brown sugar
Sugar that has been granted from up above.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC