"pelt" poems
When you plunged
The light of Tuscany wavered
And swung through the pool
From top to bottom.
I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,
Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders
Surfacing and surfacing again
This year and every year since.
I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.
You were beyond me.
The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air
Thinned and disappointed.
Thank God for the slow loadening,
When I hold you now
We are close and deep
As the atmosphere on water.
My two hands are plumbed water.
You are my palpable, lithe
Otter of memory
In the pool of the moment,
Turning to swim on your back,
Each silent, thigh-shaking kick
Re-tilting the light,
Heaving the cool at your neck.
And suddenly you're out,
Back again, intent as ever,
Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt,
Printing the stones.
25.6k
Hopping frog, hop here and be seen,
I'll not pelt you with stick or stone:
Your cap is laced and your coat is green;
Good bye, we'll let each other alone.
Plodding toad, plod here and be looked at,
You the finger of scorn is crooked at:
But though you're lumpish, you're harmless too;
You won't hurt me, and I won't hurt you.
9.8k
Droplets tap the dusty windows
Tipping pleasure on the pane
Dribbles every time the wind blows
Prophesize a hurricane
Kisses linger on the backseat
Desperate to delight in more
Suffocated by the heat, but
When it rains, it starts to pour
Panic storm that quickly closes
Smashing waves upon the sand
Tension tearing up the roses
Stuttered poems, shaking hands
Though the pressure keeps you floating
And the ocean licks its shore
There's no way of sugarcoating
Once it rains, it has to pour
Stick a finger in your ceiling
Let the plants hang onto youth
Sunday jazz, petrichor feeling
Hear it tripping on the roof
Smell it shifting all around you
Leaking through your drying veins
Leave your stagnant dragonfly blue
Open up into the rain
When it rains, it pours
I'll blossom being yours
Downpour cleans the ***** traffic
Rippling madly down the drain
Paints the artist something graphic
While he's waiting for the train
Laughter echoes in the morning
Licking soil and clouds to raw
From the vision that's been dawning
Once you rain, it has to pour
Spitting bombshells pelt your raincoat
Tears in quiet pools of green
Holes inside your getaway boat
Water's sweet but can be mean
You've avoided all the warfare
But the stars rampage for more
Douse the thin comfort you still wear
Once it rains, it starts to pour
Stick a finger in your ceiling
Give the plants a thirsty truth
Fairy lights and freedom feeling
Tunes of our torrential youth
Smell it changing all around you
Bursting through the shrivelled veins
Leave your crippled summertime hue
Open up into the rain
When it rains, it pours,
I'll bloom so much being yours
We're a perfect storm, I guess
Fire has been stopped with less
When it rains it has to pour.
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 2:46 PM UTC
Little Red Riding Hood walked through the woods
Singing and swinging her bag of baked goods
When out of the brush leapt a wolf with a smile
And some florist’s advice for the innocent child.
So off went the girl, picking bunches of daisies
While Wolf raced ahead with a step none too lazy.
Then at Grandmother’s door he knocked and said
“Let me in dear Grandmother, it’s your little Red."
So with grandmother’s blessing he let himself in
And ate up the oldest of little Red’s kin.
Then Little Red Riding Hood came through the door
With nary a clue of what was in store.
After noting her “grandmother’s” ears, nose, and teeth
Into Wolf’s gullet she went with a shriek.
As the transvestite wolf began snoring like thunder,
Along came a huntsman, who cut his belly asunder.
Out came Red Riding Hood, Grandmother too
While Wolf, so oblivious, kept sleeping right through.
With a few heavy stones, a needle and thread
Wolf, far too full, finally woke then dropped dead.
After a party of baked goods and wine,
The huntsman gave Red a great wolf pelt so fine.
“Thank you, dear huntsman,” said our little Red,
“But I’d rather skin wolves on my lonesome instead.
I know things now, of these beasts and their wiles
I’ll give them a lesson, with blood and with style.
Teach me to stalk, to chase and to shoot
The best huntress I’ll be - and the cutest, to boot."
The huntsman, he roared with his big booming laughter.
In a voice that rose straight up to the rafters:
“Why little girl, have you a taste for the hunt?
You’re better off sewing, though I hate to be blunt.”
But little Red pouted, and threatened to cry
So the huntsman gave in, with a shrug and a sigh.
The huntsman- he was a formidable teacher.
Now Red lives in fear of no living creature.
Today, when Red Riding Hood walks through the woods
She carries bags of new, furry goods.
And when out of the brush leaps a wolf with a smile,
She smiles right back: “You’ve picked the wrong child."
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 3:35 PM UTC
in the icy swirl
of deep-inhale
I reach down inside
to darkest
heated flesh-fabric
removing the clothing
of my soul,
feeling the layers
slowly undone
the flay
of my own fleece
the peeling
of my own pelt
penetrating
through tissue,
a journey to the
deep heart of me,
cut in one clean move
and yet, like a miracle
there is
no pain
just magnet-connect
beyond the cusp
of words
that curl from our
tongues
rising up in
latticed affirmations
a cleansing in frost
a constant, aquamarine renewal
and there is no past
no future
just this prism
of crystal liquid jewels
flowing in
gentle,
cellular music
straight into the strands
of our veins
and I miss you
like you have gone
on the long winter hunt
my longing splayed out
like an animal skin on
four poles
its tendons stretched
beyond measure
yet holding fast
with a roof over my head,
I acknowledge
my restlessness
I am my own
hunter-forager,
both searching and found,
gathering up bits
of velocity
stroking the ribbons
of passion
stoking the fires of my
heart and hearth
protecting what is us
like a lioness
for we are overflowing
with both strength
and tenderness
our own bones
ingredients of the wild soup
of our feral union
of our constant rebirth
our very dna
weaving itself
like heartstrings
in the rush
of
time
Dec 9, 2017
Dec 9, 2017 at 6:35 PM UTC
may the eyes of every
slithering light be blindfolded,
my love is here with me
may the night be
as quiet as a village,
my darling gently dries her wings
let no thought betray,
no stone pelt a shiver,
my dove goes visiting a dream
hush now, oh deepest
of all fathom,
the world floats on a heartbeat
all things done, undone,
things indelible, leisurely
things, now discarded
a parting feather in flight
descends...
her beguiling bejeweled body
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 6:25 AM UTC
How cool and sweet the air I drank,
Standing beneath the starry sky;
As I stroll’d the starlit bank,
I saw my Fairy Queen float nigh.
She shew’d me petals for my bed,
A long grass for my easy-chair;
Mushrooms for umbrella or shade
Should rain pelt down from Anywhere.
She gave me May dew for my thirst,
Nectar sips to sweeten my lips;
She shew’d me jasmines, bloom’d and burst,
Whilst light-foot’d fairies round us tripp’d.
Not until I heard the church-bell
Strike with delight the morning hour,
Did I hear a thud as I fell
Off the red petals of a flower.
None was in sight when I came round;
A small red flower stood by my side.
Not a stir was heard, not a sound;
My Fairy Queen had gone to hide.
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 4:31 AM UTC
I come face-to-face with my Shadow
hungry
devouring
depraved.
The lupine
before a full hunter moon
bristles.
Hot saliva
falls
from hurtful pointed rows
in pearls.
This
in Goodge Street Station's
Underground
where a poster
promotes
The Hunger
a page-turner
The Clown in Soho:
3 Chocolate Martinis
4 lagers
1 gram of *******
300 press-ups
7 mile run and
1 sachet of Kamagra
… the night begins …
I howl with delight
- that’s me -
cracks open
a smile
yellow eddies swirl
in thrawl
to that shadow beast o’ mine.
This monstrous
I
can never satiated be --
a beast to straight jacket under the influence of the waning and waxing moon
and on the night of the carmine moon
release
My phone rings
(Excuse me, while I take this).
‘Hello, am I speaking to Ashley?’
‘Depends on who’s asking,’
I respond
licking my lips.
‘You Ashley Chapman?’
I like this kind o’ game.
‘Like I said,
who’s asking?’
Frustrated he repeats, ‘Confirm your name.’
I yawn and tell him as savagely as I can:
'No!'
Wolves
know 'no'
to the pack.
But as in Beauty and the Beast
(the Cocteau 1946 version, of course)
beneath that thick molting hair pelt
beasts have culture
and feelings, too
(a lion's heart?)
and mostly
(occasionally not)
given
space
food
The Den
a willing mate (or two)
we’re okay
affectionate dogs.
For when all is well with my shadow
-- no problem
in peace
in chains
'til the looped moon!
Oct 8, 2017
Oct 8, 2017 at 1:38 PM UTC
The old and strong
Do not wither
They stand tall and fast
High and mighty above the rest
Their roots are deep
And cannot be severed with ease
Yet if you try
And god forbid
that you do succeed
A loneliness
A sense of guilt
Will push and pelt at you very soul
Simply, a certain darkness
Will cloud your heart
Leaving you to wander
Lost,
Haunted by your past mistakes
Knowing that not even
A good nights sleep
Could save you.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 11:25 AM UTC
The curse of the Night Walker
Ones who sought the traces of darkness
Of world and of soul
We see through the shades
We know the blindness
Some may be born
Some may be dragged
We know this darkness
Better than most
Daylight ignores us
Cruelty cages us
Even if we break free
It never changes
Day Walkers say they feel
Sorrow and doubt
When the Night Walker fades
When most never knew what made us
They pay a few kind words
Then walk
Day Walkers find it easy
To move away from darkness
Thinking candle light is enough
To light the path
When their flame is easy to extinguish
Flowers pelt the fallen's final rest
When petals wither
Never do Day Walkers
Have the burden of the souls
Which still linger
When the Day Walkers are blind
To the flickers of light the soul that still remain
The curse of the Night Walker
Is that we know too well
The sight of a lingering soul
Bound to a world
Where daylight seeks to hide us
Rather than shelter us
The curse of the Night Walker
Is that we hear
The shadows that continue to scream
To the horrors they felt
When they cast the form in which they became
The blessing of the Night Walker
Is that we also see
The distant stars in the sky
In which few of us see
As the destiny of the Night Walker
So we may guide others to the light
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 10:43 PM UTC
I
Who would be
A merman bold,
Sitting alone
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne?
II
I would be a merman bold,
I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly;
And then we would wander away, away,
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.
III
There would be neither moon nor star;
But the wave would make music above us afar--
Low thunder and light in the magic night--
Neither moon nor star.
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
All night, merrily, merrily.
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,
Laughing and clapping their hands between,
All night, merrily, merrily,
But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine;
Then leaping out upon them unseen
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly.
O, what a happy life where mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.
2.7k
Nicky, the neighbor’s dog, drags a road **** home.
A beautiful pelt like those fox shoulder garments women wore in the
forties.
But the head is crushed beyond recognition—maybe it’s a fox and that’s
why Nicky, a canine, is conducting this wake on our front lawn.
Loretta, my wife’s mother, is in the hospital again. Forty years of Crohn’s
disease has finally broken her.
It may take some time but she won’t bounce back from this episode.
None of us are sorry to see her die, not even Loretta. There will be a
thunderous downpour during her last hour.
I like the story about the nuns hitting Peg in school–contumacy is a sin.
Emile and Loretta considered it an inappropriate punishment for their
cherished adopted daughter.
So they pulled her out of Catholic for public school. They did their own
thinking about discipline.
Early Spring, peepers all night, then the birds take over at dawn.
Soothing—the mourning doves.
During this half of the year, May through October, we live in a green
bower.
We turn the house inside out, move into the mountains.
In their annual order, flowers appear in the understory: coltsfoot, hepatica
and trillium through to the end, late purple aster, spotted joe pye and
pearly everlasting.
We let Nicky nurse her road **** watch over it, roll around on it.
Don’t let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in the passing lane.
Jan 16, 2024
Jan 16, 2024 at 7:35 AM UTC
Black Wolf is no pale sheep
He hunts on his own and chooses who he meets
He has no family nor friends to share
They nurtured him and turned death at Frozen Lake
The ice was too thin for it not to brake
Black Wolf stands out
He has no control of how it come out
Not because he has the gift of the growl
Or the raunchy moan of an infamous howl
Black Wolf against the snow white sharp he is
A brilliant beacon marauding over mountain caps
Any lady or foe knows no way to know
How or why he became so black against the snow
Black Wolf respects the old
The tender the wise
But spots the fool and the teenager trying ever so hard to be cool
Black Wolf has no pack
He's not one for looking back
He seeks no attention
But knows where he came from
A wolf mother wise and tender
Black Wolf died in his sleep
In a blizzard that berried him ten feet deep
No funeral was felt nor body skinned for pelt
Just the drift of the snow
As his body let him go
And the call from afar said "come, its time for you to go"
Aug 13, 2015
Aug 13, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
If all a top physicist knows
About the Truth be true,
Then, for all the so-and-so's,
Futility and grime,
Our common world contains,
We have a better time
Than the Greater Nebulae do,
Or the atoms in our brains.
Marriage is rarely bliss
But, surely it would be worse
As particles to pelt
At thousands of miles per sec
About a universe
Wherein a lover's kiss
Would either not be felt
Or break the loved one's neck.
Though the face at which I stare
While shaving it be cruel
For, year after year, it repels
An ageing suitor, it has,
Thank God, sufficient mass
To be altogether there,
Not an indeterminate gruel
Which is partly somewhere else.
Our eyes prefer to suppose
That a habitable place
Has a geocentric view,
That architects enclose
A quiet Euclidian space:
Exploded myths - but who
Could feel at home astraddle
An ever expanding saddle?
This passion of our kind
For the process of finding out
Is a fact one can hardly doubt,
But I would rejoice in it more
If I knew more clearly what
We wanted the knowledge for,
Felt certain still that the mind
Is free to know or not.
It has chosen once, it seems,
And whether our concern
For magnitude's extremes
Really become a creature
Who comes in a median size,
Or politicizing Nature
Be altogether wise,
Is something we shall learn.
2.3k
Wayfarer,
walk with me
down the open, crumbling road.
We’re two surviving souls--
billion year old
molecules binding
our hearts, muscles,
bones and nerves winding--
let us go back to the beginning,
before the time of sinning,
to the start of our creation,
before government or nation,
to find the garden and lose regarding--
regain our innocence.
The sun, rain and wind will test us--
we’ll build shelters of hides and bones,
pick berries and sharpen knives with stones,
play bone flutes and gut-stringed lutes,
and **** nothing without reason
and prepare for each change of season.
We’ll take our water from the glacial melt.
Our fashion will be the furry pelt.
Of course, we’ll remember poem and song--
for they were never wrong;
art was blameless.
It was the only thing
“Civilization” left us.
We’ll spark fire with pegs and strings
whirring, friction, small kindlings
into fire; we'll sit round and tell our history--
marvel at our ancestors’ folly, what mystery...
We’ll write dramas and dance;
we will honor this second chance.
English we will remember.
And French and Arabic, Latin and Hebrew.
We’ll start a new language, or two.
We’ll wash and sew condoms from intestines;
this time, what we’ll invest in
will be sustainability.
No need to propagate the earth--
it is fruitful enough already.
Only to be in harmony, a place neither above, nor below, others--
the animals and plants, who are our sisters and our brothers.
Oct 16, 2016
Oct 16, 2016 at 10:33 PM UTC
A man was driving in his car,
Or carriage, on the road the runs,
Where with his wife and little ones,
His horse did stop
On mountaintop–
Over the vale of Chappaqua
Black as night without a star
Came pitchy darkness on men's eyes,
And then great hailstones from the skies
Rattled around
And with rebound
Drove creatures mad in Chappaqua
The awful grandeur of the scene
Impressed him so it made him clean
Forget himself,
His house and pelt
And all his goods in Chappaqua
Thank God, they're safe! One did debar
Destruction on the road that runs–
To him, his wife and little ones.
Tornadoes pass,
Green grows the grass
In the valley, aye, of Chappaqua.
The New York Times. 5/13/2016.
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 2:17 PM UTC
I dreamed of Frida Kahlo
"yo era ella amante"
pure, paupered prince to her primal queen
yet still I hollowed a carnal niche into the midst
of one perdurable, lurid " noche de los muertos"
and fingered the lachrymose from her lacerations
counting prurient time in a piercing nine of
perennial persecution before I wore her pelt
to lay me down in her sanguinary glow
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 6:54 AM UTC
We will know no sorrows here..
Dark matter poured taut
in ebon plastic,
elegent, limber, perched on spikes.
Confined in chosen monochrome,
so lithe in gritted temper.
Full fraught on waves of jaw - smoke,
tumble nails from this wretched pelt.
Enscribe my will
on soft , ribbed, levees
Spread and buttered oysters
downed , your earthy spices ground
against my viscid grin.
Now raise the dead in frantic transport
Sound the depths of this cracked voice
Imagining....
We will know no sorrows here.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM UTC
Battle scars of lives once known
have come to haunt my waking life
I clench the wheel but waves have thrown
my modest journey into strife
clouds pelt rain from mighty storms
that rage relentless on endless seas
thunder rolls and figures swarm
the mountains dark and void of trees
the wind and rain like needles cold
submerge my desperate plea for light
the day now distant, faint and old
like a child's balloon drifts out of sight
there is no place for memories here
the waking life will pay the cost
seas are littered with those that fear
the echoes of the battles lost
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 9:11 AM UTC
It starts with a pinch and an itch,
Between your shoulder blades,
Trickling down your spine like a bead of sweat.
You groan hot and heavy,
Doubling over in pain clutching at your stomach,
And you have this urge....
Your canines enlarge,
Further sharpening.
The hairs on your arms bristle.
Standing on end when you hear the first tear of skin,
At the base of your spine.
And it splinters your mind.
A wine high pitched and wanting,
A gasp as your hair thickens.
A pelt of fur to keep you warm,
There is pain between your eyes,
Your jaw stretches inhuman and ugly.
Legs snap and your squatting on the floor,
Arms pulled close at the elbow,
Back hunched over.
Dirt digs under your fingernails turned claws,
As you grip the steady earth for purchase.
You feel your heart beating against your shifting ribs.
Strong,
Fast,
And aching.
Lungs constrict and your eyes fly open.
Blinded by the ethereal light of the full moon.
You cry out,
Human voice bellows loud, loud, loud!
The beast sings in your ear.
A roar,
A howl.
The transformation done.
We are free.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
Hey, I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader there's only one pelt I'm interested in....
I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled Global warming has taken all the snow away....
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, i do know Partel, Kareem, Xi Chein and Steve
and they're really really nice.
I have a Prime Minister who is ******** not a president.
I speak English and a little French, not American though we like to mock southern accents...
And I pronounce it 'aboot, not about...
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack along with with motorhead and misfits patches...
I believe in peace keeping, not policing unless you count the G20...
diversity, not assimilation, unless it's the borg...
and that the ****** is a truly proud and noble animal and a bald one is truely a wonder to behold...
A toque is a hat that douchbags wear all year round, a chesterfield is a couch that my dunken friends sleep on,
and it is pronounced 'zed' not 'zee', 'zed' unless its Zebra because Zedbra sounds stupid!!!
Canada is the second largest landmass that can be pilfered by multinational conglomerates!
The first nation of hockey!
and the best part of North America... except vegas!
My name is Josh!!
And I am Canadian!!!
EH?
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 2:18 PM UTC
I.
Prideless, they tore railroad men’s brown *******
lurking the thirsty Kenyan banks.
Red moonlight sluiced from brambles and linen skins
pressing upon tawny flesh, igniting fire of feline eye.
Imperious, they patrolled the union jack encampment
lingering in shadows of long-labour’s dreamless sleep
until the smoldering campfire morning
when one hundred hammers lean in one hundred corners.
II.
Maneaters in glass houses can’t throw stony glances—
the power to haunt having run off with the ghost.
Now, they reign over the acrylic savannah
sneering—not out of regal disdain, but mild discomfort
from dust mites nitpicking at tautly taxidermed pelt.
Rebel eyes that halted an empire now cast
dull marble stares at fossils in the floor
and derailed trains of un-terrified school-children
near a hissing robot-box called Mold-A-Rama
spewing magma into plastic tyrannosaurs.
May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010 at 8:06 AM UTC
to the pack, he was a menace
killing their cubs for their pelt
his instinct was relentless
he didn't care about the pain they felt
on the trail of chasing vengeance
nose to the ground, he caught the smell
he found a scent that is endless
left alone to howl and yelp
.
.
.
just a wolf in a wolf's clothing
eyes that focus on his own tail
chasing circles of fear and loathing
he can never cover his own trail
.
.
.
even the sheep are growing weary
this illusion gets their goat
no more hate, no more fearing
on his own tail he chokes
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 6:50 PM UTC