"prickles" poems
I took the left path where hydrangeas grew and sleepy primroses under woods, edged shady trees.
The empty stream ran quietly dry
With grass cuttings piling high.
If one peeped, one would find tiny creatures
To cast a sparkle here and there, a delight.
So on tip-toe, with sandels bent
Up high I reached to take
The plastic fairy as she twirled a pirouette
In a theatre made by chance.
Reflected in a silver mirror intwinned with ivy branch
A mottled foal tends his dreams and Chrismas robin chirps.
My brother took the right hand path where the trees grew fruit
Ripe berries from the gooseberry bush bulged their prickles.
Dangling from hawthorn now a cowboy with a hat
Looking for his fellow Indian with the yellow back sack.
Sheep gather in a hollow, dark, protected from the sun
And Mr toad, now lost of paint, has turned a bit glum.
And so we leave our woodland friends and travel up the slope
Winding round the rose bed and goldfish where they float.
Then up we climb, the middle route, to jump the pruned clipped
Hedge.
The lawn divided in two halves, a contemporary taste.
Now we're nearly at that place where if one was to turn
Could see down across the land
To the sea and sand.
Of all the beauties that I've known
Nothing beats this Island home.
Love Mary x
My grandfather’s retirement bungalow was in Totland Isle of Wight.
It was named Innisfail meaning ‘Isle of Ireland’.
Behind, the garden led down to magical and delightful to children who came as visitors. My grandfather would prepare this woodland with some suitable surprises.
The garden and woodland deserved its own name and in retrospect
Is now named ‘Innislandia’ to suggest a separate, mysterious land.
Beyond the real world.
In the poem A Country Lane on page 8 the latched gate is the back gate to my grandparent’s garden and bungalow in Totland as above.
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 7:57 AM UTC
(1674.)
I have desired, and I have been desired;
But now the days are over of desire,
Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,
And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,
And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,
Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,
The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;
Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Oh vanity of vanities, desire;
Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,
Turning my garden plot to barren mire;
Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
14.3k
Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?
It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The **** of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!
Shh! These are chess people you play with,
Still figures of ivory.
The mud squirms with throats,
Stepping stones for French bootsoles.
The gilt and pink domes of Russia melt and float off
In the furnace of greed. Clouds, clouds.
So the swarm ***** and deserts
Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.
It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!
So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.
It thinks they are the voice of God
Condoning the beak, the claw, the grin of the dog
Yellow-haunched, a pack-dog,
Grinning over its bone of ivory
Like the pack, the pack, like everybody.
The bees have got so far. Seventy feet high!
Russia, Poland and Germany!
The mild hills, the same old magenta
Fields shrunk to a penny
Spun into a river, the river crossed.
The bees argue, in their black ball,
A flying hedgehog, all prickles.
The man with gray hands stands under the honeycomb
Of their dream, the hived station
Where trains, faithful to their steel arcs,
Leave and arrive, and there is no end to the country.
Pom! Pom! They fall
Dismembered, to a tod of ivy.
So much for the charioteers, the outriders, the Grand Army!
A red tatter, Napoleon!
The last badge of victory.
The swarm is knocked into a cocked straw hat.
Elba, Elba, bleb on the sea!
The white busts of marshals, admirals, generals
Worming themselves into niches.
How instructive this is!
The dumb, banded bodies
Walking the plank draped with Mother France's upholstery
Into a new mausoleum,
An ivory palace, a crotch pine.
The man with gray hands smiles --
The smile of a man of business, intensely practical.
They are not hands at all
But asbestos receptacles.
Pom! Pom! 'They would have killed me.'
Stings big as drawing pins!
It seems bees have a notion of honor,
A black intractable mind.
Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything.
O Europe! O ton of honey!
7.8k
In the dour ages
Of drafty cells and draftier castles,
Of dragons breathing without the frame of fables,
Saint and king unfisted obstruction's knuckles
By no miracle or majestic means,
But by such abuses
As smack of spite and the overscrupulous
Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews,
One white horse drowned, and all the unconquered pinnacles
Of God's city and Babylon's
Must wait, while here Suso's
Hand hones his tack and needles,
Scouraging to sores his own red sluices
For the relish of heaven, relentless, dousing with prickles
Of horsehair and lice his ***** *****
While there irate Cyrus
Squanders a summer and the brawn of his heroes
To rebuke the horse-swallowing River Gyndes:
He split it into three hundred and sixty trickles
A girl could wade without wetting her shins.
Still, latter-day sages,
Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies
Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,
Never grip, as the grandsires did, that devil who chuckles
From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains.
6.3k
Look up to the sky
See prickles of light
And crystals hanging by
Some invisible thread.
Dance lightly
Under the star lit sky
A slow ballad
For our ballroom dancing.
Hear your slow breathing
Feel your arm around me
Hear your heart beat flutter
This touch of fantasy.
Twist and turn
And sway to your side,
Gently moving
Through our dreamscape.
Open my eyes
What dreams I paint,
There we lie
Underneath the star lit sky.
The wind in my hair and
Your chocolate brown mane.
The lights of some faraway city
Nothing brighter than our sky.
This cold winter's night
Lets forget the cruel world.
Under the cover of stars,
Tell me your story
I'll tell you mine.
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 3:12 AM UTC
Night witches own the dark, as they sweep the skies on their knotted broomsticks. They take to flight, in pairs, under waxing or new moons, when the sky is darkest, the stars at their dimmest and gloom the deepest. They steal souls, drink warm blood, gather teeth and fresh, human meat.
They drift, smoke-like, with noir-intent, chewing their charcoal treats in that imperfect silence that prickles with all the sounds of the earth: growing plants, creeping insects, rustling leaves, and shivering birds.
Although their stygian laughter is frequently mistaken for cat fighting, they are soundless, becoming the shadows that disturb, that draw startled glances from the periphery of vision.
In their dark-passing, a mother will check her sleeping children one more time - dogs will whimper and fathers, the hair on their neck standing, will check already-locked windows.
Are you meandering out this night - to walk the dog or check the mail? If so, look to the sky. A little decision can be the worst mistake of your life.
Feb 15, 2022
Feb 15, 2022 at 9:31 AM UTC
.
•my
arms point
to the sky•
a gesture
frozen in eter-
nity•un- fazed as
the clouds whisper a
lie• rumours of rain that
never came quickly• prickles
protrude menacingly •threaten-
ing all who would stray too close•
baseless gossip that masquerade
as pleasant- ry•to deviate me from
the path i chose•still i stand
here...duelling the sun
•in a land scorched
barren•search-
ing for hope
when there's
really none•
here i stand...
lonely and
drought
stricken•
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
.
Nov 24, 2015
Nov 24, 2015 at 10:51 AM UTC
Colours of blue, green and pink
float by dancers dressed in
grand outfits of silver cloth.
A girl, not much older then 9,
sits in the back row of the empty auditorium
looking on in awe of what she was seeing.
She closes her eyes and imagines
herself upon the stage being the lead role.
It's always been her dream to dance like them.
A tiny tear prickles in the corner of her eye,
she gives a soft sigh, knowing it's useless to
dream of impossible things.
She turns, careful not to bump
the chairs in the row in front of her.
She grips the wheels in her hands,
and rolls out of the hall.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 1:45 PM UTC
I might have told you some of these things,
If you were alive.
You had an amazing body from the moment we hit seventh grade.
Your ***** just sat, round and high,
Your ******* pointed straight outward,
Like a freak of nature, or an action figure.
Cheering at football games
Girls hated standing next to you because
You peeled their boyfriend’s eyes from their skirts to yours.
One summer night on Garrett’s roof,
After making turkey sandwiches at two in the morning,
******* the fumes in your thin lips,
Watching the smoke twist in the air
In front of your ice blue eyes,
And your white blonde hair,
We talked about ***
About how it’s ****** up
how it is so much harder
For girls to have *******
Then I dated Jesse,
After you.
We were 16.
Sometimes I think about the night I told you I was sorry,
In the parking lot by the river.
Your breath smelled like Doritos and cherry *****
You fooled around with your pink shirt
Telling me it was ok.
We talked about our secret handshake.
We talked about how you used to want to be nicknamed cupcake,
We talked about the time we had a séance.
Age eleven bringing back ******
On your screened-in porch,
Warm air swayed the candle flames,
Crickets in the darkness around us,
Suddenly,
A biker knocked over your trashcan in the ally.
You are dead now.
But you did it.
Sometimes I’ll eat too much,
Or *****
Or smoke half a pack of cigarettes,
When I think about you.
One night last summer I ate an entire half-gallon of vanilla ice cream,
Alone in my kitchen.
My stomach felt sick for three days.
I walk the trail behind your house,
The one where you think you started your period.
The first place we ever smoked ***
I talk to the trees about you.
When the wind blows the branches
And the dry leaves sound,
In that gentle shudder,
Along the cold ground,
My skin prickles,
And the hair on my arms rises towards the sky.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
my wild heart
beats excitedly
feeling overwhelmed
with desire
soft caresses
quicken the pulse
sending it into a whirlwind
of hypnotic feelings
control is lost
falling from fingertips
dazed
by prickles of need
not satisfied
until flesh meets flesh
ending with the exhaustion
and perspiration
of spent love
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 7:40 PM UTC
what sound do you make
when your bones hit the floor?
heavy like the noise
of a slamming door.
light as a bird, bones do sound
soft as whispered words.
when they are ripped
from your body, a little,
you’ll look pretty and brittle
and breakable; little china doll,
I advise you not to fall.
tapping on bones, like sticks,
little drummer boys
make a war cry noise.
the battlefield is invisible
until it’s not, and your skin prickles.
fingers, bony spiders, crawl
hurting, tearing it all.
barren like a desert
the bones do seem
bleached and white,
like a mother that weeps.
gravestone bones like little dancers.
strong as milk, shatter army advances
in you; they sabotage you,
then they try to break through
and crack and bend.
they’ll be out!
they’ll be much better then-
but your body, made of jelly
misses the commensalism.
bones, they create a schism
between mind and body.
they’re ever so naughty.
May 9, 2018
May 9, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
You know how the sun is always there,
each morning, throughout the day
and makes sure life grows.
and sometimes you want to face it,
with eyes closed
and arms spread out
till a tingle spreads from your fingers
to your insides
and how sometimes the same sun
burns your skin and prickles your mind.
You know how the moon is always so calm,
serene and makes you awestruck
as if it's the reason for the tides
of your heart
how it makes you feel secure and at peace
how it follows your car and keeps looking
out for you wherever you are.
but also how it isn't always there,
or is, but not entirely.
***
Nov 8, 2014
Nov 8, 2014 at 11:21 AM UTC
As I open the door
The cold engulfs me first
raising hairs on my neck, shivers down my spine, prickles on my scalp
Next the smell
so mild, pleasant, crisp. similar to rain or dew
my lungs take in this air for the first time
The light begins to peek over the mountains
clearing the fog, cutting away the dark
The quiet is both a comfort and an uneasiness
Only the earth under my feet whispers as I walk the dirt path
The lake unblemished, like a mirror for the sky to look upon
no wind, no waves, no life
standing there, absorbing the surroundings
I am the one to break the silence, to shatter the utopia
as I drop the pebble in the waters…
these ripples go on Forever
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
incessant
annoying
the buzz of cicadas in the edge of july
incessant, annoying
buzz of sunlight against my skin
prickles my cells
bleaching my hair
the world does not sway
there is no breeze, no gentle winds
just the shadows of leaves
and circle lights on the grass
dipping into the heat
dipping into the light
into the buzz of summer's noise
i hope it doesn't drive me crazy
i hope i don't sunburn.
Jul 26, 2022
Jul 26, 2022 at 12:55 AM UTC
at the end of the pier
no one is fishing
a couple from Jersey
leans out over the
rail looking down into
the brown swill
rolling under the
weathered boards
The wife remarked
“Belmar's water
is much nicer.”
on the Gulf’s edge
unhappy gulls convene,
plaintively gazing
over gray waves
ebbing at their feet
Brown Pelican crews
fly in long
ordered formations
incessantly circling
in widening rounds
seemingly reluctant to
plunge into the
endless depletion
of this aquatic
dead zone
I speak with a
Jefferson Parish employee
working a shovel
to regrade disturbed sand
boasting a consistency
of moist drying cement
“How did the Gulf oil spill
affect this place?” I ask
“It took evarding.” she said
With a slight Cajun accent,
“dig down a foot or two in da sand
you hit earl. It nevar goes away. Nevar.
“I live down bay side
near forty years.
Had’nt been in de water fer
twenty five. The ******
******** took evarding.
They should go back
to Englund”
She went back to
tilling the sand.
Deepwater Horizon
yet festers a short
forty miles out to sea
is now covered by
an advancing storm
swelling in the Gulf
standing at the end
of the long pier
my hands grasp the
sun bleached lumber
straining my eyes
peering into a
dark avalanche
the serenade
of bird songs
have been replaced
by the motorized drone
of tenders servicing
offshore rigs
sounding
a constant refrain
filling my ears
with a disquieting
seaside symphony
the taste of
light sweet crude
dances on my tongue
the pungent sting
of disbursements
climbs into nostrils
rends my face
prickles my eyes
grandeur is a
conditional state
never permanent
forever temporary
Music Selection:
Cajun Music:
Hippy To-Yo
Grand Isle
2/20/17
jbm
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 5:52 PM UTC
Rose:
"Dandelion,
how dare you grow in my bed!
Only I have the privilege of feeding on this nutrient rich soil,
created for me, me alone!
You have no right to make your home here!
My keeper will pull you out of the ground
and dispose of you like the **** you are."
Dandelion:
"Rose,
I've just as much right to grow as you do!
Why do you insult me?
Am I not a flower just like you?"
"Dandelion,
you're a common garden ****
I'm beautiful, admired by all who set eyes upon me.
My keeper feeds and carefully prunes my body.
She admires my soft velvety petals which are the deepest red.
My stem, so slender, my prickles tempting, dangerous.
I'm beauty and pain in perfect harmony.
You can admire, but do not touch!"
"Rose,
I'm beautiful in my own way,
don't you see?
My yellow petals, the colour of golden sunshine.
I symbolise the sun, moon and stars;
I'm also resilient.
I've no carer to look after me, yet I still manage to flourish,
even in the toughest of places."
"Dandelion,
your time will be short in this place!
There's no room for your commonness here.
I'm a special breed, you're ******
"Rose,
I know my fates sealed,
I accept the situation for what it is;
Beauty's in the eye of the beholder.
What you don't realise,
we'll suffer the same fate!
You'll end your days
standing in a vase filled with water.
My death will be quick;
Yours prolonged!
In the end,
your beauty will be your downfall!"
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 5:13 AM UTC
There was a girl to be seen sometimes,
her breath at the pulse of my throat
and fingers wrapped, such elegant porcelain
skin pressed against my forehead.
She fell into my eyes and I swallowed her
not whole, only those little bits she left.
She does not nourish me,
only curls up in my liver where guilt
prickles every time I let the toxins in.
The only words she spoke reverberate in my lungs
so each of our breaths whisper what I am not -
'when I was younger I knew I could be anything
it was only when I got older that I forgot.'
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 6:07 AM UTC
ANZAC CHUMS AND THEIR MUMS
In Oz the possum grinds on thorn and gum
Far too stretched to visit mum -
Things are hard outback of Bourke
And there’s no time for anything but work.
But Kiwi possums like to visit ma
With flowers for her crystal jar -
They’ll even take a shopping bag of buds
With some greens and beans and spuds.
In Oz the possum is protected
As indeed might be expected -
Beset by fires and drought and prickles
And parched out creeks that slim to trickles.
But Kiwi possums are heaven sent
To slurp and scoff to heart’s content -
When they dine they have the best
And not surprisingly are deemed a pest.
In Oz a treasure - in NZ an imported glitch
There are mixed opinions either side the Ditch –
Mum’s the word on making possums able
To visit home with veggies for the table.
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
Prickles of the pine
it's reindeer time
across the moon at night
like fireflies in flight
buzzing little beez
elves in Christmas trees
Santa's gift to us,
kids happiness and love.
Dec 20, 2020
Dec 20, 2020 at 1:32 AM UTC
Let me breathe the smoke between your thighs,
The way a drowning man breathes water -
my Queen of Oysters.
I will sup til hungers end
the elixir
then sup, and sup again
the banquet of your flesh
with the thousand tongues
of my fingertips and eyes.
This Alligator that hides amongst daisies -
let him sleep in the black garden of your hair
O concubine of Saturn
Open slow to the brush
rough hands spring petals
that gambol and gyre
in great prickles
through
the spine and scalp.
Let us run to the moon, together
or sleep til the noon, apart.
My Queen of Oysters,
Let me sleep in the black garden of night.
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 8:39 AM UTC
Often we approached the bay over high ground
Taking the track from Totland between the heather
Where the small blue butterflies dusted the grass
With a fluttering sparkle and the gorse spoke yellow.
The climb to the top was arduous with many stops
Sitting on prickles, the scent of sheep buzzing
Around our ears and nostrils and filling sandels.
A rest refreshed with that thermos coffee hot on lips.
Then in an instant we came out of shadow to meet
The white glare off the sea and a downward decent
Across grassland filled with thistles
To drop
Through style and gate and down onto the road.
Love Mary
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 7:18 PM UTC
By running to the past
Where the sun came in
Can there be a retrieval
Of the happiness rising
On blue Iris in its bloom.
For the past is safely lived
Untouchable, protected
And the wandering warm
The hawthorn prickles
Not a spray or blight.
Love Mary x
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 12:29 PM UTC
It was with ice cold winds
that blew across their cheeks
that their bodies found the warmth in each other
to ignore the painful prickles
of goose bumps they felt
not knowing if it was because of the crispy air
or the touch of warmth
their hands imprinted on each other...
it was a night filled with hope, and stars and laughter
dark , yet filled with light...
on the trampoline in my backyard...
that was where it happened...
I was trying my way with the boy
that sat across from me...
they made it easy because they left us...
there on that trampoline they were lost somewhere deep in each others eyes
as I struggled to maintain sane , alone, with that boy
I was growing jealous of their blossoming love
how fast did it grow to reach the height,
the height my heart has been struggling to achieve in years...
but I was happy... for them
they were happy...
they were...
then as if the cosmos played a little prank
on my little friends heart...
like the tower of babel...
their love reached the height where it crumbled,
and fell apart...
and those who built it was left
strangers,
nothing but mere foreigners...
one was headed to sunny Florida,
he was okay...
the other one... my friend,
was headed to Linfen
without a way of communicating his pain
his loss
his ... love
today we sit and converse about the hope that may still remain
the revenge we may still take on the ruthless foreigner from Florida
and the other boy on the trampoline...
hoping that maybe...
if they ever decide to build a love of their own...
it will be corrupted by the pain they have caused,
from their pasts.
and we hope
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
land of no responsibility
except to give in to that burning urge
that prickles up the back of your neck on waking
to be off out running under sun
barefoot as soon as out of sight
adventures wait and time belongs to you
you fish for sticklebacks in a field of golden corn
where farmers wave in anger at the trail to the pond
and take home tadpoles in glass jars on string
breathless at the sight of legs emerging
pick bluebells in the wood for mother
but then arrange them in old tins
in tumbledown cottage the gangs den
scrumping crab apples in overgrown gardens
never getting that stomach ache all Adults warned of
roaming hedgerows looking for hedgehogs
hoping for signs of any living thing
all long fled at the collective noise you make
catching butterflies to look at their wings
putting crysillis in greaseproof papered jars
to watch them emerge for flight on glistening wings
when you return them to the wild
lifting up old drain pipes to look for slugs to race
not forgetting to put them back at races end so they dont shrivel
basking in hot sun after watching trails of catapillars
whose prickles mother later tweezers out
amidst a small flood of tears because they flame red
having a bath with bubbles then tucking up in bed
drowzy but anticipating tomorrow is waiting
Jul 9, 2012
Jul 9, 2012 at 7:01 PM UTC
hush,
hear it?
listen.
all those waves
rolling in,
out,
dragging all you hate,
all you fear,
in tides
offshore.
no pen can trace ink
faster than the sea
can wash it
all away,
promise.
your words are water,
dissolving in the saline sounds
of neap and spring,
rise and fall;
lunar rhythms.
eye the sky
and wait for everything,
the whole god ****** world
to take a breath
and quiet down
so you,
with shaking hands,
might find some peace
below the seabreeze scented winds.
just wait for it.
now,
a moment.
a cosmic pause,
and even nature waits
for what should happen next.
recede.
gradual fade
of throbbing veins,
and wet skin tingles
prickles
with delight
of marine air.
you
are safe;
free.
Jun 27, 2021
Jun 27, 2021 at 10:10 PM UTC