"shelled" poems
Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide's coming
When seas wash cold, foam-
Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,
A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves
Crest and trough. Miles long
Extend the radial sheaves
Of your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins
Knotted, caught, survives
The old myth of orgins
Unimaginable. You float near
As kneeled ice-mountains
Of the north, to be steered clear
Of, not fathomed. All obscurity
Starts with a danger:
Your dangers are many. I
Cannot look much but your form suffers
Some strange injury
And seems to die: so vapors
Ravel to clearness on the dawn sea.
The muddy rumors
Of your burial move me
To half-believe: your reappearance
Proves rumors shallow,
For the archaic trenched lines
Of your grained face shed time in runnels:
Ages beat like rains
On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. Such sage humor and
Durance are whirlpools
To make away with the ground-
Work of the earth and the sky's ridgepole.
Waist down, you may wind
One labyrinthine tangle
To root deep among knuckles, shinbones,
Skulls. Inscrutable,
Below shoulders not once
Seen by any man who kept his head,
You defy questions;
You defy godhood.
I walk dry on your kingdom's border
Exiled to no good.
Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.
15.1k
Collecting thoughts, imagination as vivid as the colours of a sunset.
The endless saturday, the drinking, the endless sun.
As the sun beats down on your face, and they reveal more and more skin
You look around and lovers are everywhere
None of them care
The day is to bright and the future is endless
Colours blazing brighter than the sun
All the girls, don’t want a son
But you can care less, the sun is endless and so is your life,
Every time the sun is up, you find the fountain of youth again.
Turning you from 18 to 7
Caring is not your middle name
The world is your toy
So skate around the board walk listening to 3005
Searching for a new potential lover
new goal
You don’t look for cover,
like a mole
Cause you are reincarnated
You remember that school is today
but why go on such a beautiful day
the future is now
whats the point of sitting around like a cow
The ocean as blue as the sky
where your dreams are shelled
in a bright yellow sphere
and as the sun goes down after the day
Now son don’t be in such a dismay
Forecast says, you’ll be young forever
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 10:46 PM UTC
Weeping Zaire, her Bleeding Flannel blew
Over the Land this Serenity bequeath
What happened, then, to the Children you knew
Took out their Armites; And shot Mercy beneath
Salt from their Riches they greatly export
And infected your Brothers in the Dark
With Mums, Flesh-Spermed Tales of Horror consort
Lost all but their Shelled Samples in the Park
Our Dear Hands sprout! And cry to Heaven's Name
Asking the Saviour when this Madness ends
As the Radio's Red Tape is all just the same,
All just Light-Shows; But very few Amends.
These Congo Apes weep black at the Event
Not just the Brother; But Habitat meant.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 6:56 PM UTC
Lustrous but also lackluster
We are gems yet salvaged
Formed inside of a shelled world
Waves waning and whining
Sailors nauseated on our waters
Drifting towards an aggrandized land
Where they might find us oysters in the sand
They'll tear them open,
In search of what only we bear
Camouflaged amongst the cultured,
Or even those with nothing there
Darling,
We are wild,
Yes we are rare
Open up to me,
We've so many layers to share
Your metallic smile,
Your iridescent articulation
Everything happened so naturally
A miracle to be in the same location
They won't crack us,
For our muscles will defend
Our valuable and vulnerable interior
From the worlds vinegary intent
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
Ah! how the memory of
those pretty green eyes
enlighten my senses
making them parallel to
round ***** of safety.
Ah! how those eyes
regurgitate and bounce
pupils widening whenever
my eyes meet their gaze
wavering and moving from
person to person in an intimate crowded group setting.
Ah! how those eyes
which resemble soft moss
or the slick flesh of kiwis
stare at mine catching like how
flypaper catches mosquitoes
accidentally but intentionally
awkwardly but inventively
and ultimately intentionally.
Ah! how the memory of
those pretty green eyes
throw me off balance
when they lock into mine
and for a good ten seconds
merging a little too long
unnoticed by the crowd.
Ah! how those eyes
are like ghosts in my
memories so valid and
plausible they seem to
drift yet knowing they
will be seen tonight
creates a fidgety hope
splintered and shaking
within this hubris heart.
Ah! how those eyes
are framed by the
curliest of lashes
so cute they bloom
ripe smiles within this
here empty chest cavity
which seems to be defeated
at the moment but somehow
waiting to witness
orbs of stegosaurus skin
shelled and shellacked and unbuckled am i
at just a smack.
Ah! how those eyes
are like a slap
to my psyche.
Every part a swirling mass
of unabridged uncertainty.
And no matter how it seems
those irises of gold and green
will always be downright dainty.
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 2:16 PM UTC
After having been raised and drilled into the ingrained wood
with the politeness of
"pardon?"
"excuse me?"
"come again?"
his calloused and critical "What!?"
brought out my cancerian nature
and shelled away my voice,
I breathed out a muddled/clumsy rendition
of my witty/quirky comment
and I instantly became aware that
my timid nature wasn't cute but cumbersome.
Apr 22, 2011
Apr 22, 2011 at 5:36 PM UTC
tropical breeze waves washed upon a
soothsayer sand beach whispering love poems between each sigh
seagull clouds baying from above
lustrous sunshine massaging with temperate beams
beneath the waves, turtles twist in tubular turnabouts
bright coral and jaded fish teem in the reef
shimmering sunshine shining through waves
casting shadows and light amongst an oceanic spectrum
we flit through the ocean as foreigners and locals
tiny air bubbles pressing from our lips
unlike the denizens filtering through the reef
we press up to the surface and break through for breath
exiting the ocean of life, we wash upon the shore
driftboards sewn together in matrimony
our clam shelled hands interwoven in the fabric of our souls
sand pressed between to make a glistening pearl
i sit up while you lay down on our thin towels
falling asleep with an upward curve on your lips
i trace my finger down your back like pencil to paper
drawing each crevice, perfection, and blemish
on the landscape of your body
a faint breeze ghosts through the swaying palm trees
dolphins nonchalantly diving through the air and ocean
***** scuttling along the precipice of the sea and sand
waves washing the crooked edges of stones
amongst this equilibrium we are infinite
soaking up this portrait life like a sea sponge
in these moments we are infinite
moments we imagined we had
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 3:49 PM UTC
A lonely man,
alone he stands,
crying deep into his hands,
his life shelled in a can,
seeing life, and so he ran,
tears separating into strands,
his name never spoken of over the lands,
he is a lonely man.
His life is boring and awful too,
his joy short and brief like a word,
he hopes to meet something one day,
but he already knows he will rue,
the day he isn’t socially absurd,
so now he lives in dismay.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 7:49 PM UTC
I was born on a Zodiac cusp
on the 23rd of July 1997.
I am Cancer, The crab.
I am Leo, The Lion.
Sometimes I feel small,
prey to mighty predators.
But I can hide
and I have claws
so please don't try to hurt me.
I am brave, confident and proud.
I roar with fierceness,
but it is nothing, just a sound.
I am strong and fast,
I am the king of thousands.
I am hard-shelled but fierce.
I can hide or I can hunt.
I can crawl or I can run.
I seem small but I am big.
I have a strong jaw and sharp claws
I wear my crown proudly
for I am the king of beasts
but I am far from it.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 6:05 PM UTC
One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.
Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied
The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate
3k
Truth a Stinging Bee Compassion promotes
Was ever by Chance I try to Avoid
But asking for such from your direct Mote
Was in fact Soothing as much as a Toy
Shelled? Yes as far as I have just observed
Those charmed Somniloquies your Voice expressed
In Art, why not? Mosaics are much conserved
Though tiled in Paradise of Colours concessed
Calming this haply your Passion consumes
Amongst Events the Water soothes and calms
Direct Object Happy; Go put out the Fumes
Which blinds Good Fish spitting Coins for their Alms.
Still this Summary chose you for your Grace
For me, next Spell, will adapt to your Face.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 12:08 AM UTC
Metal heavy
ready
steady
Hot in hand
Shelled, cocked into green-light action
Pierced through fresh flesh
Body leaning
keeling
pleading
Hot under hand
Shelled, coiling under skin unwilling,
Malleable
--
c
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 1:06 PM UTC
I don’t remember when I lost my tenderness
And hardened into a thick shelled adult
No more innocent, no more gullible
Like a snake, I have peeled away my old self
It was easy enough, but having shed it
I realize no spring can bring it back!
There was a time when my imagination
Was so fiercely fuelled by fairy tales
How I used to visit the magic realms
Traversing the path from wonder to wonder!
On fancy’s feathered wings, I flew
Dwelling with fairies, demons and vampires
Roaming through the gilded hallways of magic castles
Peering into wishing wells
Wandering into enchanted forests
I searched under pillows for tooth fairies
Lay awake in bed to hear a tap on the door
With the ringing plea, falling in my ears
‘Open the door, my princess dear
Open the door to thy true lover here’
Wondering if a slimy frog has leaped over to my bed
Many hours were lost in fearful suspense
Pondering if the hoodwinked Red Riding Hood
Would escape the claws of death in the woods
With bated breath I followed the three Billy goats
On their way to the meadows beyond the bridge
Cursing the wicked troll that lived under it
Scrubbed old lamps hoping a genie would crop up
To bring things, my little heart cherished,
Looked up to see Aladdin on his magic carpet
Whizzing past the clouds,
Once I left my homework undone
Thinking those helpful elves would do it
While I snored away in the dead of the night
Now bereft of all such queer fancies
My brain has gone into lazy slumber
My world once checkered with colorful patterns
Now lies damp, dull and laden with strife!
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC
Her eyes are the stained glass broken from confession.
Her withered hair buried beneath dirt gravel.
Her forbidden mind fosters slobs of crazy.
Her mind is a battlefield of Trojan takeover.
Her bare feet remember sacred ground of tainted memories.
Her ears embrace the screech of still weather.
Her grapefruit mouth juiced with venom is tasteless.
her sharp egg shelled fingertips woven from braids of straw.
Her body is the Earthquake ruptured by the vibrations of collision.
Her thoughts trespass gated abandonment
Her firework pen exploding with gunpowder secrets.
Her gunpowder secrets deterring the sanity.
Her cracked lips cobweb from silenced words.
Her puppet stringed smile puts on a show to the audienced world.
Her soul has been toyed with by the cynical Fates.
Her echo without direction is a heartbroken drum line.
Her armor has been dowsed with sharp, penetrating words.
Her skin has painted stories interior to her porcelain frame.
Her soulless story can be dry swallowed by rocks.
Her tears bleed of whispered screams.
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
Lobsters
@2014 Linda Barrett
They sit in the cramped corners
of the water tank
face each other
armored claws bound
with thick rubber bands
These shelled warriors
take on boxer’s stances
wait their chance
to attack each other
in impromptu bouts
They step over one another
pick fights for dominance
of their watery ring
Some desperate crustaceans
decide to make their escape
reach out for the tank’s top
but fall over backwards
onto each other
Those lucky ones
usually win
when the Seafood man
in his white coat
pulls them out
makes the champions
of someone’s dinner.
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
Eggs.
Eggs have an equality about them, I know worked on a farm
collected them put them on a tray, each one had thirty eggs
they all had the same size, but some eggs had shells slightly
darker than others boiled they tasted the same.
There is a possibility that someone once said brown eggs
where somehow inferior, one had a better chance find two
yolks in a white shelled egg, we ended up with two prices
for eggs, the white ones for breakfast, the brown ones for
omelette. When I was an officer in the merchant navy I bought
brown eggs mostly because they were cheaper.
This has come to an end eggs are now mixed there is no choice,
but in the end they all taste the same.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
~
*"Satellite, oh, satellite
who sits upon our skies
how deep do you see
when you spy into our lives?"
This is for when
coyote called
into the ether
connecting heaven to earth
For when
glasnost sang
and velvet revolution
twinkled in the humming air
This is for when
the quiet hedges
of lilies and remains
came out of darkness
For when
the misty curtain man
shopping for codes and antiquities
poisoned the salt shakers
This is for when
a spy in an alcove
twisting the thermos tops
to his dark-eyed sister
shelled the transmitters
of Radio Free Europe
For when
his wife refused
This is for when
working in the glass structure
of a Cold War
made spider and I
a measured room
an arc of doves
For when
the last step from the surface
was the end of a thin cord*
~
Nov 16, 2021
Nov 16, 2021 at 5:59 PM UTC
In Houston, Texas,
she was a volcanic eruption.
A sword ripping through
the societal norms.
She looked on the world
as her carnival, sometimes sticky
and smelly, but wonderful and bright.
Every morning Marley would
sit on her driveway.
Waiting for the mailman to
bring her the bills.
Every morning she'd smile at him.
Tell him stories about her
life as flea market shopper.
"There's a piece of gold
amidst all that trash."
Introduce him to her shelled spider.
"This is my pet crab Eddie.
We're best friends, he's a hermit too."
Her death came in an odd
silence.
Her simple absence on Wednesday
morning.
Marley Rain was an exceptional
girl.
The mailman said she made an exceptional
corpse.
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 3:47 PM UTC
You forgot your pictures
On forgotten bed side tables
In the back of my brains.
I was supposed to sleep two hours ago,
But I was busy tracing the tracks
You’ve crossed with your fingers on my skin;
And when I reach the end of the map
I don’t find a treasure
Instead I find your dead cells
Lurking on my shoulders
Like dust lurking on my book shelves,
Like tanned blondes stretching on the sea shore,
Like red and blue highlights that you’ve kept for so long.
I found your sea shelled bracelets
And 3 fingered rings exciting,
I found the simplicity of you wearing no necklace soothing,
But I knew that I was at the peak of a roller coaster ride-
When everything slows down,
When that loose feeling of safety
Tingles up your spine
And stays long enough
To amplify the shock of falling suddenly.
I picked up a flower shaped safety pin
And as soon as I brought it close enough to smell
Your grenades exploded in my face.
Instead of shattering,
I blew up into a thousand words
That can make oceans of me ,
And instead of you swimming
You learned how to drown;
Avoid my words,
Swim through the sharks and create jewels out of my sea shells
Till I become just another
Pendant from your arms,
Or glitter on the corners of your backpack
Where you hanged memories you force outside
Because the demons inside are not on good terms,
Because the demons inside of you are screeching
But you don’t want the world to hear;
Yet you left your pictures on my bed site tables,
And you meant to keep a retraceable mark of you on my hands
And you want me to come back,
But your mines were too dangerous.
Your mood swings
Flew me over the bushes,
Your cigarette smoke, filtered in my lungs
Made it hard for me to breath out the words “I love you”,
Your eyes are my only solace
But sometimes,
It takes less effort to exit home
Than to stay in it.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 1:00 PM UTC
She is salty lipped ocean throat
Warm morning fog
Mixing with her overcast
I want to place my head on her treasure chest
Listen to her wet ruby cascade and thump
A metronome for people who dance lightly
She is a mildly ******** mermaid
Born with the deformity of legs
We were all born a little bit broken
I tell her
I know you’re a body of water I want to drown in
When home feels like it’s so much bigger than these four walls
But not much stronger than the skin I’m in
So here’s to jumping off cliffs
With the hope to land a little painfully
So evolution might give me the wings I was meant to be born with
She walks like a riptide
Often risks drowning in the off chance
Nature might be kind enough to understand
What it really means to have sea legs
This is for the soft shelled crab
Who was tired of the heaviness of home
For the mockingbirds who never studied music
So they copy sound
Sometimes really annoying sound
But they hear the beauty regardless
For the Dumbo Octopus
Who clearly watched too much classic Disney
The beluga whale who can crane its neck
When its sonar song of home is not enough
To know their kids are coming back to them
For the penguins
Who are fine being flightless
Because they’d much rather swim
They didn’t think it was stupid
When they wished they could be different
And she is the ocean
Hips sway like a high tide approaching
Hiding sirens’ secrets
Skeletons in her closet
Lovers who have lost
And drown in her pitch black
She wears the water like a second skin
Smiles like the wind is pressing back her cheeks
She chokes on sea water
Drowns a little
With the hope that this place might feel more like home
Sometimes home is the hardest place to get to
But there’s nothing wrong with going home
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 3:19 PM UTC
My pulse is slowed by the tide
that sighs twice daily
over the sparkling mud,
a slow scatter of wading birds at its heels.
Inhale and brambles dot the hedgerow,
purpling our mouths -
exhale and the snowdrops are back,
advance guard of a trumpetting spring
as the circling bay holds the circling year
in its silver grey water.
Our house plays host
to dramas and dreams
but they are beautifully small
in the middle of this
and I have never been so at home.
The trees planted themselves decades ago
in preparation for our boys.
The sea rose and fell for shelled and pebbled eons
that there might be the perfect clatter
when Fergus leaps from the rocks and runs
into the waves
and if three cars go by
within an hour
we say, "Christ, it's busy today!"
This, and us, is home.
Feb 16, 2011
Feb 16, 2011 at 2:02 AM UTC
From this island
water and more tiny islands
heavily treed with Douglas fir
landing ground for ocean otters
while orca whales glide by
spout and spray
the beach, broken shelled
puddled wells of tide pools
filling, spilling over again
brown bauble seaweed mingles
round algae rocks, barnacle shingled
here where the air breathes salt scented
water running wild with salmon.
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 10:40 AM UTC
This time I will make sure to look into your eyes when you are talking to me ....
But next time I will make sure to talk to you when I am looking into your eyes.....
This time I will make sure to laugh at your silly jokes....
But next time I will make sure to make silly jokes on your laughter.....
This time I will make sure to listen all your blabber...
But next time I will make sure to blabber to listen me....
This time I will make sure to agree with everyone.....
But next time I will make sure that everyone will agree with me....
This time I will make sure to be shelled by your breaks.......
But next time I will make sure to break all those shells.....
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 7:52 AM UTC