"silkworms" poems
This yellow saree she wore
Just once in her life had wrapped
A coy twenty-year-old bride
Tentatively setting her dainty foot
Into the hesitant bridal home .
Somewhere in the backwoods
Several industrious silkworms
Had spun miles of salivary yarn
In the foliage of the mulberry tree
To make this golden yellow saree .
The rustle of her silk drowned
The wails of the boiling cocoons
The worms died that beauty would live
In their plaintive cries lay bridal hopes .
My mother, the bride of yesteryears,
Is now as non-existent as the worms
That had ceased to exist spinning
The smooth silk for her bridal finery .
Her bridal fragrance lives on among
The delicate folds of these gossamer silks
That the worms had died weaving.
Death is so fragrant , so memorable.
Nov 4, 2010
Nov 4, 2010 at 6:03 AM UTC
Please, I've forgotten
how to hold a pen, she said.
Those were the words that
convinced me to write a letter
from a stranger to a stranger.
So this is a message to you
from her.
She's asking how you're doing.
She wonders if the stars are brighter where you are.
You know,
there's a meteor shower coming
in a few weeks' time, she's
she's asking if you knew, and if
you'd watch it with her at eleven in the evening the Saturday after the next
so she'd feel like you were right there beside her
pointing out which streak held the most brilliant color
and if you're asking,
she's doing fine.
She's wondering if you know
how silkworms spin silk,
because a friend asked her the other day
she didn't know how to reply except by telling herself
that you would've known, so
how do they spin silk?
Let me know as soon as possible, she says
my friend wants to know.
But I think she's asking that as an excuse to hear your voice
but also because she really wants to know
how silkworms spin silk
and if you think jade is the nicest kind of green
or if you prefer hiking or swimming
if you agree that innocence is just untested character
and if you're asking,
she's longing for answers.
She's hoping you don't think of her,
and she's hoping you do.
She wants me to tell you that
she wants you to remember
but she wants you to forget the pain,
so might as well forget everything
because hurt is the price of loving someone.
She confesses that she's tried to stop
writing about you
but every time she sits down to
write her soul into words
your memory slips in and dances off her pages
and she tries to stop it
and if you're asking,
she's trying to find ways to make thinking about you easier.
According to her,
she's quieter now
not just her mouth but her feet,
her hair
her eyes
her spirit
Look at what you've done, she says.
I
I've always been a terrible liar.
Please, I've forgotten
how to hold a pen.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 10:54 AM UTC
I love you the way the sun rises every day, without fail. I love you like the night loves the moonlight, covering the darkness with her glow. I love you the way the universe expands into infinity. I love you for each star in existence and that ever will exist. I love you like seeing a streaking comet that comes around earth once every 80,000 years. I love you the way the soil huddles and heaves in winter. I love you for every grain of sand, and I love you the way sand becomes glass, solid and liquid, when put to heat. I love you for the lovebirds in your eyes. I love you as silkworms spin fine reflective threads. I love you past galaxies and superclusters when seen at the speed of light. I love you at the speed of love. I love you with the wild abandon of migrating butterflies being taken by summer’s wind. I love you for each tear that’s ever washed your face. I love you for every smile anyone has had the fortune of witnessing. I love you like a sunset’s last rays of the day, turning everything pink and fiery. I love you as a boulevard winds between houses with closed blinds and closed minds but the road ahead is open. I love you as words meet paper and poetry is created. I love you for every ant that ever worked to make a home in dirt mazes. I love you like the snowflake, vast in number and each unique. I love you the way bullets explode from chambers stopping at nothing but nothing. I love you like jellyfish sting, unforgettably. I love you the way a lioness defends her cubs unflinchingly. I love you the way fog slinks in, engulfing and blinding and in love with the moonlight. I love you like time heading forward and backward and all that is is now. I love you for every ‘I love you’ ever spoken, written, and thought. I love you like sage growing in a sidewalk crack. I love you as hieroglyphs carved within Egypt's tombs, for the way glyphs of people all face towards goddesses and gods. Je t’aime, je t’aime, mon petit rouge.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 2:27 PM UTC
We spend all our time being jealous
For things that are not really ours
We beg for another perspective
To guide us without leaving scars
But we are the slaves and the martyrs
The ones who will never obtain
A simple oblivion ending
The heightening level of pain
And this be our chosen confession
The one we have kept on our tongues
"I want to be everyone else's"
"I want to collapse my own lungs"
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 10:02 AM UTC
Sounds like crucify.
My hands are bound by his grip
on the plank perpendicular to my toes
that start to curl backwards now.
I binged on memories
of the words words words
and when my ears burned
I imagined you cradling her
on your chest
softly brushing her hair back
and talking about me.
At the summer camp where
Jesus saved me
I picked up a pre-packaged
cereal sealed in a factory
long before my selection.
I peeled away the plastic film
and there where my bowl
of cereal was supposed to be
was a colony of silkworms,
squirming around like
a bunch of tied hogs
in a swimming pool.
I threw up because it grossed me out.
I had no control over it.
When I think about her hair
around your stubby, little fingers
I throw up because it grosses me out.
I have no control over it.
I'm no Will Shortz, but this poem is about you.
There's your clue.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
Dark and lovely as the African night sky
with as many gifts as there are stars on high.
I am the light that shines in darkness
The lion and the king, the ostrich and the
Silkworms to me are the spirit of life,
As mere mortal men make love tonight
I am composing the perfect poem
with one wicked indulgent on my mind
to make memories that will last forever,
Please surround me with a sphere of
powerful, brilliant white light
When winter is over I will
Give praises to jah
Before i forget, the moaning winds,
the naked branches on the trees
Long hours, crazy commutes
I beg you to give praises with a poem
for little favors with poetry
Let us forget the negativity and negative critters
Dark and lovely as the African night sky
With many gifts as there are stars on high
Tonight, I shall shine,
I am the dark temptress,
driven by winter madness
.
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 9:19 AM UTC
I want to mow the grass in your heart
so maybe weeds will stop growing in the chambers.
I see how your breath is interrupted sometimes, you hiccup
out of an intoxicating sadness
mall fountain no one tosses their dimes and wishes in.
I bought you a set of those antique hairbrushes, hand mirrors
so heavy in their silver lace
beautiful like doilies or handkerchiefs for sneezing.
May it bring you silkworms rather than one from slimy earth.
Dear you, it can be okay not to talk about
how you feel and who you love and why you love me
as long as you feel it, please know that I believe it is there.
It can be okay to brush your hair looking into a vanity,
pretending that I am your lover overseas
because you feel that way
vines as big as the Berlin Wall block your heart from mine.
And still, we love
despite the wasp nest, the sadness bugs inside.
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM UTC
He lived in the perfect place
for a trailer park,
but his had the only wheels for miles. It
was a cemetery with just one
dead body,
a morgue with a single
black garbage bag.
We had a funeral for my hair
when he held
scissors to my skull, and swallowed my
motor cortex so I would never
run away – a promise
that he needed to check for silkworms
in case that is why my hair
stayed so soft.
My braids went into the plastic bag
and his tongue danced down my throat
daring me to move
saying he would love to
see me bend all my bones for him.
All his blankets were green
like the forest,
all his walls made of wood paneling –
me, the last young thing
and he buried me alive in his bad breath.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 7:43 PM UTC
one hundred percent polyester shirt woven by plastic silkworms.
Apr 3, 2012
Apr 3, 2012 at 2:05 PM UTC
Back at the berry farm...
Boston's Berry Farm;
Where streams slide slick as oil
And beautiful birds choose their perches with caution.
With winding roads of dirt and dust,
Each pebble has its own face,
He throws one when I say no---
It hits my heart and shatters my hopes.
Silenced screams on the forest floor,
I bury myself in my mind
As he buries my head in his lap---
I stifle a cry, I swallow my pride, and I forget.
My best friend, my neighborhood knight
Picks up a baseball bat,
Slams the smile off of his face
Breaks his ribs, but doesn't break the promise.
No one knew, no one knows,
It stays buried under the maple leaves,
Under the twigs and the wildflowers,
Under the shadows of the silkworms' nests.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 1:41 AM UTC
Once again, many greedy people appear
No different from silkworms wrapped in cocoons.
Wealth and riches are all they love,
Never giving their minds or bodies a moment's rest.
Every year their natures deteriorate
While their vanity increases.
One morning death comes before
They can use even half their money.
Others happily receive the estate,
And the deceased's name is soon lost in darkness.
For such people there can only be great pity.
Zen Master Ryokan
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 3:42 PM UTC
Long story in a brief-case. The happy end to a half a story in a split level house…
The gasp and the harps, played by June Carter and the angels just a mile above the pillow that the silkworms blessed. Draw a lead color shirt from the wardrobe. Put it in the dresser. No. Hung it in the closet… to bury it in the hamper. It’s lovely. But not for the doorbell.
Or the finger that bends on it upon contact.
Or the eye peering in reverse through the peephole.
You’d need a jury, honey, you’d need a jury. Just keep looking.
It’s a satire what you can get away with when you haven’t any intentions to get away. In fact, come on in.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 6:18 PM UTC
My girl is drenched in sunlight
Every step she takes
She sets the hollow ground ablaze
Her hair is spun from silkworms fingertips
She is stained glass shot through with moonbeams
My girl is sewn in neon
Stitched with the violent nighttime glow
That renders shadows as indigo ink
Illustrates them so
In ways the quiet amber streetlights
Envy so
When she dies
I am certain that
My girl’s embers will burn dove white
In the twilight’s velvet sky
And outshine every other winking ember
As her smile did so in life
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 3:54 PM UTC
She got my number from her sister Elizabeth.
She spoke in a voice, bearing resemblance to the silkworms the Europeans stole.
She used to date a guy from Hixson who drove a 1956 Chevy Bel Air.
I drove a Toyota.
I didn’t smoke cigarettes, or drink alcohol.
I went to NOVA, the community college.
She texted me: Good Morning; She texted me: I’m thinking about you.
She told me, over the phone, about her car accident, before her family.
She found a new boyfriend: Mark. A mellow skater.
I took my first creative writing class with a Professor as my poet.
I wrote poems about her, long ones, and short ones. Showed them all to her.
I spoke with her over the phone; told her I loved her.
When she didn’t respond.
I hung up.
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 3:33 PM UTC
{ “He plunged to the centre, and found it vast.” - Conrad Aiken }
STEEL AND SILK
My love like steel and silk
cuts through you
splutters your blood
watermelon juice down a throat
Wipes it with yellow silken ribbon
for you to **** afresh
that you may find your
Godly seed within
My love like dragonflies and bees
silently landing on stamen or pistils
alchemising nectar into patterned
dust upon transparent wings
Earth rewards my love with morning glory
steel severs sunflower stems
silkworms crawl into a wet rose centre
pollen stolen in sparkling dew
My steely silken love refreshed
from your flowered stickiness
©GhairoDaniels2017
Aug 6, 2025
Aug 6, 2025 at 4:05 AM UTC
Living in a different
reality. You wanted to confuse
the honeybees. They were dying in large
numbers. There was frantic search
for the skullcaps. Power
of the crowd was on display.
The stingers were on prowl.
Again the mountain
slips. The terrain becomes pathless,
placeless. So where to sit with a mirror?
A tulip garden has arrived
for inquisition. Are you ready
to surrender your cloaks? The
public servants will make an inventory.
The day dreaming does not stop.
I wait. The best is yet to come.
Feb 12, 2017
Feb 12, 2017 at 10:55 PM UTC
Who's fault was it anyway?
Blame left outside the garden gate.
Who played games with her heart?
Who played games with her head?
Moments of silkworms, that spun gossamer.
Smooth, slipping away.
Creator, heart breaker.
Love maker.
Blooms and blossoms.
No questioning stings.
Lost moments of passion.
Just one of those things.
(c)Livvi
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 11:11 AM UTC
There was no telling as much,
always the same, the sun and the wind
somewhere
I had that chilled feeling,
certainly in early morning
as I think you very well knew.
gently, over a surface distraction that saw
the white giant crumble,
he flailing
and failing to be still
and at indistinct intervals
staggered, without consequence
flecked insane although I had not seen it
a rotten companion, solitude
a reeling, drunkard at ease in starlight
he will not hear her speak of what is
and what is not
I heard the owl cry ‘away with her!’
and how nice for me to see you
clinging to the flower spray, for now
we are older and for once safe
in our chambers
yes! consider those girls never alone
nor melancholy,
not the least of which in dreams
the moonlight made spots before me
colored
while i entered groping
singing
‘Will you dine with me on eggs and beer?’
The silkworms are but gone but words might hold me in catastrophe
The sun will go on with its usual calling
don’t fret now
it is our bedtime.
Jan 4, 2022
Jan 4, 2022 at 1:25 PM UTC
Eyes that could not be juxtaposed with earths deep yet mesmerizing waters.
skin that could not be compared to a silkworms softest of produce. Hair that blends within the nights dark wonder and mystery.
A smile that not even the gloomiest could resist.
for she is life,
she is reason,
she is love,
she is,
Maru
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 2:10 AM UTC