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Nathan Vienneau Sep 2014
My duck pond polluted with human filth,
Old grizzly pidgins flock to eat the disease,
It shows in their mottled grey and brown feathers,

My little duck sits on a rock and cleans.
Wondering...
Where oh where has my baby gone!

Sickened with sadness I can stand it no longer.
Geno Cattouse Sep 2012
When I was just a little lad
I never knew my mom and dad
My big brother was my hero.

He raised Pidgins as a hobby.

One day he upped and promised me
a pidgin of my own. Oh goody.

One day a storm blew into town and blew his pidgin
coop aground.

The sole survivor of the storm was one pathetic squab.

Here little brother says my sib.He's yours.
so I fed him,and built a nest for him, and
hugged him, and pet him,  and loved him.

He was me and I was he my little buddy Pete.
and every day I wouldn't stop to play but run
home to my Pete. Oh my brother George is my hero.

One day I ran home  to my Pete and found no sign of him.
I asked George where my Pete boy was. He said he had no clue.
I found out later That sum-***** sold Pete.
That rat ******* sold my pidgin.
Quitterie Nov 2017
Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward.
Yesterday is so far, and the party is done;
Gone are the petits fours and the sound of the drums.

Today the wine is red and I push with my thumbs
Some leftovers of bread on the table, some crumbs.
Wasps are nibbling the grapes and the time can’t rewind:
How cold are the graves; I am losing my mind.

They’re clicking the laughters and clapping all the bones;
Their pidgins are swishers in cages of the zoos:
Mariette and Amir went all the way up there,
– Like an old souvenir – and it makes me shiver.

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward.
Amir was a poet and Mariette a dove.
Who can tell that the death is watching out for love?

Yesterday the river saw us throwing some stones,
And drinking cans of beer. The sunlight and the glows
Of tiny water hints: we had to fold the eyes.
Who can tell that omens were these water lilies?

Mariette was wearing her pretty yellow pearls,
Her simple golden ring. The long mane and the curls
Of Amir, and his mood, were like hot butterflies
They were so young and proud: Why can't I stop my cries?

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward.
Of what kind is this waltz, this triple meter dance,
This strange time with no source, which always starts and ends?

Yesterday, tomorrow; this day: a stunning ride
On horses of sorrow where I cried as a child.
Knucklebones of my hands, and my feet in the snow:
Of what kind are these wounds spoiling red my pillow?

Mariette cried and laughed, this all at the same time,
As Amir depictured the story of their fine
And very first kisses under the almond tree.
Their sweet and calm faces have fired poetry.

Look at the skeletons – they’re dancing in the yard –
And the violet smells in the new day forward…

(c) Quitterie Kerlach
A May 2014
Do you know,
Every time i go on facebook,
Im looking for traces of you?
Every time i go on instagram,
Im looking for a picture,
that shows your life.
Im looking ,
Searching for evidence.
I know i will see you tomorrow,
But tomorrow can never come slower.
Its like getting homesick,
An emptiness,
A void i need to fill.
And i feel that sometimes
i don't know what i should do.
Should i look for you to fill me,
Or stitch myself up?
Because its never certain,
I feel like im always guessing.
Did i say the right thing?
Did i look okay?
Did i scare him off yet?
Because so many have already left,
But they weren't even mine.
So instead of embarrassing myself,
Humiliated,
By the unreturned feelings,
I will remain in the corner.
I will stay in the safety of silence.
Not the sound of silence,
Because i talk a lot,
But the feeling.
Words with no meaning behind them.
A present,
wrapped in pretty pink paper,
And when you open it,
It's empty.
Even though you may try to pull me out,
You may try to give me that gift,
I may never try to open it.
Not because i didn't want to.
Its because i didn't know it was there.
And i see the other girls.
They swoon to you.
Its like when you feed pidgins in a park,
And your holding the seed.
I don't know why your still here.
I don't know why,
you chose the one pidgin,
Who cant fly.
So thats why i hide.
Thats why i stare at screens,
Instead of into your eyes.
Im scared.
Im scared you will find some flaw,
Find one of my many imperfections.
Yet you treat me,
With the sweetest of words.
And don't know how to react.
And those words fill me.
Yet the satisfaction leaves.
It runs scared,
just like i imagine you will,
Because of my reaction.
My stupid blurted out response.
It doesn't compare.
You are a much kinder,
Gentler,
Beautiful,
Creature.
Inside and out.
I paint on my beauty.
My response,
doesn't reflect my affection towards you,
I want to show it.
Desperately.
But i have put up this armor for so long,
Its hard for me to break it down.
But i want to.
Desperately.
And one day,
I hope i will.
Hank Roberts Apr 2012
He said I was considered
a sinner because I talk of death
The holy do as well

I didn't trick a man to **** his son
I didn't flood the earth,
There's more than one way to see Noah's rainbow

The earth rumbles temples and
Splits pillars in two
as someone let all the pidgins go

You could see the red when
the sea is parted, Don't forget
your horses when the river's back

Do as you please but only when your told
or you'll wake up on the shore
only remembering Moby ****, ask Jonah  

They say go for your dreams
but if you miss Goliath's head
you ain't got a chance in hell

The ten insights made from mountain stone
the words reverbed from cascade to cascade
There's no excuse if youre lost in translation

There's not one "t" in Calvary
but today there happens to be three
Good thing he saved them all

The blood was poured ******
So all heaven and hell could see
That we're still clueless as before

The Sabbath reads ten after nine
The Lessons of life are real
but we still go every which way

He said he wasn't going to betray
All you need to know
is that he hung himself from a tree

Hold your guard and stand strong
don't let a little lady ****** your hair
or everything comes crashing down

Tag team with Daniel in the Lion's den
he'll probably set you free and say,
"watch the spear in the back"

Modern times solidify the past
It seems pretty easy to blow stuff up
in the the name of God

Though the sixth commandment
is broken our measure of error
is also our error of success

I floated down the river in a basket
The current was just right and my mother loved me
tonight on this passover night

Sell your brother for brotherly love
Hopefully the bridge ain't burned
You'll see him again someday

I haven't seen as many animals as Noah
Besides, he was hoarding them all,
After building the new world from native wood

Lucifer was canned from heaven
After he tried to kick God offstage
He now has his own show to run

They ate the forbidden fruit
Setting the way of life eternity
Simply by setting the world on fire

When the staff slither's snake
One better harvest before it's too late
I was doing a crossword puzzle
Yesterday, to pass the time,
The clues were all about animals
Both across, and down the line,
The wife was out in the kitchen
And I’d call the harder clues,
While she’d reply with a patient sigh
As she cooked two different stews.

It wasn’t as easy as I’d thought
Some clues were quite obscure,
Though each would bring up some animal
That we should have known, for sure,
But as I scribbled across the squares
I found some didn’t fit,
I’d call, ‘Lynette, have you worked it yet?’
But she’d never heard of it.

She’d said, ‘Two heads are better than one,’
And I thought she might be right,
The names that came out too long, I thought
Must be an oversight,
But when they clashed with the downward clues
And I crumpled up my hat,
That furry purr by the fireside there
Was just a common Dat.

And things that flew in the night became
Some thing they called a Rel,
They must be horrible creatures, like
Some creature based in Hell,
But as it crossed the Ordothlicon
I knew it must be right,
For on the left was a Rerr that leapt
On a dark and stormy night.

She said that really my spelling might
Be not quite up to scratch,
The ones that I knew as Pidgins flew
The coop in quite a batch,
And honey gathering Lees in trees
Were paired with wild Gorrils,
While Madgers seemed to be burrowing
All though the distant hills.

‘I’ve never heard of these animals,’
I said, in quite a stew,
Lynette called out from the kitchen that
She didn’t know them, too,
I walked around and I locked the doors
And I set each window latch,
In case that some of them wandered in
Like Carroll’s Bandersnatch.

I’m loth to wander the streets at night
If Rogs are on the prowl,
And keep away from the Cagpies nests
And the things that say ‘Miaowl’,
It seems that Berons are on the beach
And Peagulls in the air,
Lynette said better we stay inside
Than to get Peegull in our hair.

David Lewis Paget
LearnfromBOBD May 2019
Life is bewitched with illusions
Living life with unknown motions
Carried away with hidden secret
Nations with their different pidgins
What did I seek, that i didn’t see
What did i think, that i couldn’t feel
Mans relief, long believe
Why did I lie
I can see my truth is a lie
When will I die
Cos all lier shall perish
Cos no one knows when I lie
But I’m rich and wealthy
When will I die
No one still knows when I stole it
I wish I can give you a hint
But it won’t worth it
Or what do you think
Letter to death coordinator
Ken Pepiton May 2021
To the reader, dear child,
on the other side, passing in a gravity solution
that makes all things work
together

as did Hiroshima, dare we say, make for a far
better day today
than say,

that one day,
what does it say
of you and me?
We were no part in that day,
but a bit of us was, I dare say,
blown heavenward that very day,

for dust and ash are as one thing,
at the level of motes in my eye, squinting,
see, through the lashes, form a jeweler focus

to mark the slightest wrinkle,
to be tugged taut right now.

Solidity in this realm beyond the frontside
of the window we peer through, share through,
but see through darkly, projecting our known
on your window into the unknowable truth.

Bah. How can one imagine unknowable truth?
How is why's younger sibling, in the novel
experience peers judge. Judging angels,
best done in the rawest form available,

-- surprise, not boo, no start-el entheosis,

unless the truth is somewhat sorted and some not.

Chaos and death are bad guys one Plancksec,
joyous uplifters into other realms, the next.

Times pass, as page one testates to page five oh three.
And it came to pass.
We have aged, aggressively in some parts of what we are.
The sounds we say are same as always, shuffling
into pidgins we generate in familiar settings,
common sense of hearing and tongue and eye and face
and hands and minds that make three points
work to
gather space to think, time to reason, first meet season.
Safe inside three points we agree upon


Never was before, no dreamin', nada, zilch, we was, is all.

We was, then we was now, re-
memberin' how
we was a one thing-kind, an I
alone among many nameable things,
all working together to build a channel
for the flow,

to you, the reader in the top line today.

Then was this dream o'mine t'you begivin'

see and say you saw signs of meaning as true'no'lie
words and words
alone,
no brighter than the sun light
no darker than the night shade
words
on line
in lines long and lines short
down the page a goingoingoin' on'n'on

to now, right now. this'n'when you wake up
and read us at a point in life's book where
we be the answer
to the most recent,
most often missed point in life.
Why it works.
Start. Finish. Stop. Oops. Re- ah, ha,  a mythtery
stuck tongue stutter stop, say shibboleth,
hmm, can you now?
Say se, see me open, wook.

Velly intwesting tings tongues.
Some say one thing, some say the other.
After all, how influential can an immaterial thing be?
Personally.
To you, I mean
nothing, right? But to me, I am all I cannot live without.
BT Joy Oct 2019
Like smells in old cloth (of cloves or maybe smoke)
your face long after you’ve gone away
finds, inside my mind, hollows and depressions.

My mood is like something changed by the addition
of something foreign (and for the better
the way languages grow ecstatic as pidgins multiply.)

My feelings perch like drab birds and wait for thoughts
of you to come (like letters from somewhere out of town.)
Then their feathers turn, and show the colour under grey.
B.T. Joy is a British poet and short fiction writer living in Glasgow. He has also lived in London, Aberdeen and Heilongjiang, Northern China. His poetry and short fiction has appeared in magazines, journals, anthologies and podcasts worldwide including poetry in Yuan Yang, The Meadow, Toasted Cheese, Numinous: Spiritual Poetry, Presence, Paper Wasp, Bottle Rockets, Mu, Frogpond and The Newtowner, among many others. His debut collection of poetry, Teaching Neruda, was released in 2015 by Popcorn Press and his 2016 collection Body of Poetry is also available through Amazon. He can be reached through his website: http://btj0005uk.wix.com/btjoypoet

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