"smallish" poems
The Violent Storm by the Water
(Do You Trust Your Imagination)
was not unexpected
but its fury was without compare,
poet awake in semi-preparation
living by water should be a human right for all,
even a small room, overlooking, gives new meaning to
perspective
we blessed with a patio door, encased in a glass window big enough for a smallish elephant to come visit and play with children
a storm is observed up close and personal as if one was in
an IMAX 3D theater, and the edges of existence were being redefined,
sharpened by fury, tooled by tools untouched by mortal hands
miles of bay illuminated with bass drum furious accompaniment
stand before the screen,
poets arms outstretched as a supplicant,
the light of the lightening passes through him,
yet , behind me, she still sleeps
then the entire house shakes, reverberates, as if to say:
”tremble humans, cower, you are not permitted to watch my majesty, for such it was when created heaven and earth”
bold poet window worshipping
risky answers:
“but who will know
if even a poet cannot declaim sights
no one else has seen?”
”true, true, but you must choose if poet truly,
do you trust your imagination human,
to prove that the powers of the heavens are limitless?”
write of storms unseen and nature endless miracles
***”then you may call yourself
a miracle too,
a poet***”
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 12:14 PM UTC
3 X 5 index card poems
3 smallish poems in five minutes
~
reheating
honey can I make you something to eat?
***no babe, you know I hate to see you cooking, frying
standing over pots and stirring sauces
trying to brush
wisps of bangs from your eyes
while wearing kitchen mitts***
What I would prefer is something leftover,
reheated served with a smiling grin from my ear
to wayover down under there,
next to you
<•>
old words are better than than new ones
hey, hi! how you doing, old friend?
“yo, out of the hospital feeling so much better;
had some kind of ‘itis’ which they cured with an ‘yisis’!”
***glad to hear; impressed by all those new big scientific words;
frankly preferred your old ones, that were rediscovered and
reoriented in new ways in your poems verses;
me?
never better cause to hear from a man
whose optimism has yet to meet a
match
that he can’t best,***
heals all our wounds
<|>
if you told me
***that I could spend three successive rainy days in almost all silence, perfectly contented by myself,
i’d said you crazy,***
isn’t that true babe?
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 12:53 PM UTC
Albert Ross was at a loss.
He couldn't gloss
over the dull fact hanging
lifeless like the near-homophone
about his neck.
It's a pretty neck,
this long and slender neck,
with the impeccable lines of its smooth cylinder
broken only by a smallish apple.
Eve would've refused it.
To sea. To sea.
There he'd see
with its wide vistas
the feathery visage of this polar white
visitor riding astride his black cloud.
"Rain, would it please you to rain?
Are you allowed
to open up and drown me?"
Is how he’d phrased it
in his mind, countless times.
The hardest rain would be welcome,
but this constant threat,
this ponderous yet,
this threaded pendant swinging
as fast and steady
as a winged pendulum might,
was not. It tightened,
that knot deep in the pit of his stomach.
He'd done no harm.
Harm wasn't his to do,
or undo. The harm came before,
at the hands of a father,
who gave him such
an ill-spoken name,
and the Father before him.
He, ages before him,
deigned to make us this world
where a bird’s no more
than a bird or any man
with the want of a soul.
Apr 6, 2011
Apr 6, 2011 at 1:10 PM UTC
Author: Kristen Stevens
Current mood: frustrated
Anthony got a firetruck Lego set. The packaging says "ages 5-12". It also makes the claim "designed for easy building and instant play." Now I know he's only 4 but he's smart and not that far from 5 comparatively. I on the other hand am 28. Well outside the parameters age wise. Yet, this smallish box of tiny toys baffled me for over an hour. I have the directions, I've dug through the pieces, and am still mystified on occasion. As I'm searching for yet another microscopic piece of siren or whatever it was, I'm thinking..."5 years! I can't see any 5 yr-old sticking with this for this long without losing his mind. Then Mom would take it away because of the temper tantrum and never gets built. This is stupid! Where did that tiny loopy thing go?...etc" What part of an hour is "instant play" do they not own a dictionary? I could tell them.
Then once it's together, somehow Anthony keeps taking the windshield off. He's not actively disassemble it. He's just rolling back and forth on the floor going "whoo-whoo!" Lego's the most touchy toy on the planet. Maybe he'll get some more when he's 15.
Sep 21, 2010
Sep 21, 2010 at 7:52 AM UTC
___FLUFF:___
_Frequently, I discover words with hidden meaning, shining like coins in a handful of fluff, apple seeds and other down-the-back-of-the-sofa leavings. Some are too precious to share and I secrete them away. Others I spend cheaply on rigged slot machine verbiage. Mostly they sit waiting to be written usefully. Adding insight, lending moment to my day._
§
___NONSENSE:___
_Foraging amongst the dahlias
For Cinderella’s lost slipper,
I am Barbie magic made manifest,
I am Germaine (sodding) Greer’s antifem,
I am Super Mum with gumboots on._
§
___ABSURDITY:___
_The best nonsense is always spoken in the middle of the afternoon while heading north on a train bound for a smallish beige town, and so it was that the occupants of second-class carriage BG1754 found themselves gripped by a kind of eloquent hysteria as they rattled around the final bend in the tracks before the steep descent to the weatherboard station at Claggy Peat._
Apr 3, 2021
Apr 3, 2021 at 3:51 AM UTC
Down in the forest,
past the bluebells sits a glade
Hidden from the outside world
Protected, dark in shade
A magic place where fairies live
Behind a silver veil
With a gate made out of spider silk
And guarded by a snail
It's hidden from the normal path
Behind large ferns and leaves
It is only seen by fairie fok
And those who do believe
The snail sits watching up the path
For hikers and their ilk
Prepared to send the warning out
by breaking through the silk
The bluebells let the fairie folk
Know it is time to hide
Behind the silver slippers
Secret signals they abide
A place where water runs as clear
As blue as summer sky
Where magic lights the world for them
Where fairies float and fly
It is a glade not seen by us
If we do not know to look
To us it's just a darkened glade
Fed by a smallish brook
But, there inside the curtain
Is a world of childhood dreams
Where wishes are all granted
And tears help fill the streams
Magic is the hallmark
It keeps the land of fairie well
If you found it, who'd believe you
really, just who could you tell?
Protected by an old brown snail
With his silver trail behind
with a spider web to block the way
It's a place so few will find
Believe and you will see it
Past the trees and in the shade
It will open up to serve you
In that small and magic glade
If you see the folk of fairie
And their wings of gossamer glass
Then you've met up with the old brown snail
And he chose to let you pass.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 11:54 PM UTC
Blue flowered in the warm sun of winter
pungent fragrance wafts splendorous
smallish leaves, grow deeply green
with a sun-ward slant they lean
hum and sing with bees
reaching ever upward
wild, their fingers untamed
vigorous, they flourish
lushly in the lane
our hands grow green stained
here in a dream field
handfuls of rosemary
we steal
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 7:34 PM UTC
Looking back
years later,
I probably should never
have been on that flight.
Here’s the reasons why……
Shortly after takeoff,
and three cocktails later,
I spied a gremlin hanging out
on Engine Two.
Every time I looked,
smallish with green skin and red lips,
it smiled with an impish grin,
then went about its business
dismantling the cowling.
It seemed like
I was the only one who noticed
the little creature.
Other people were looking out
of the same side of the plane and
nobody was saying or doing anything.
Had they slipped me something?
Was the gin spiked?
Was I hallucinating?
Was God sending me a message?
Needless to say
we landed safely in Bogota
a few hours later.
It was a beautiful vacation!
But on my return flight,
things turned sour.
I was busted
for possession of narcotics,
spent six years in
a Colombian prison,
it wasn’t Heaven.
Like I said,
I probably should have never been on that plane.
Now looking back years later,
I think the gremlin was trying to warn me,
I wished I had taken heed,
given up the thought
of trafficking.
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 1:02 PM UTC
A snowy man walked into town.
With him, a lynx, badger, and tall bull elk.
His pipe was always lit,
fragrant cherry clouds following him and his friends.
The elk drew the most attention, as the badger was smallish
and the lynx was a mistress of hidden places.
The man never gave his name,
but he also never challenged questions put to him.
He was able to answer you without answers,
and you'd leave him, fulfilled with some truth or other,
of your making or his.
His smile was as warm as his pipe.
His eyes had the spark of the bowl,
but were as black as the briar.
The snowy man stayed a day shy of a week.
And as he left deep past midnight
on that sixth day,
a warm spell came through and
robins, ivy, and cherry blossoms
all were seen that next week.
We don't know the way he left -
no tracks of lynx, badger, elk, or man were ever found.
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 1:46 PM UTC
She, herself, will be,
soon be here - come.
Coming here. Here.
Into this refuge of ours.
This cave
This palace
Her hips, make me
nervous for they move
So very well
In my arms, her twinkle
In my eyes
Her love, I love
In my hands
I think of her more
I am finding,
as each day passes,
And they say
you're supposed to.......
Get used to this?
I don't want to
Why would anyone
want to get used to this?
It is intoxication of
The soul, a madness
Made before we
Invented our own
lesser versions.
It's too important
to ever become
Some smallish event
Her arrival, to me
In our refuge
Our cave
Our palace
It's like the first rain
for many days
as it touches
A dried out
forest floor
Little creatures scurry,
in case it's only dew,
and soon will be done
and gone;
But I don't need
to do that.
She is no line of dew
In the bower
of shaded hazel
But a torrent
from the old heavens
Drowning me,
in content.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 1:56 PM UTC
.
Rain fell in commotions—
The birds would have none of it,
The moon bellowed in ghostly white,
Faced in the sprite, ringing indifference
Of low fading stars, trees in posted dark
Scratched the grasslands of the fallen
Firmaments and the small creatures
That are holed up in days, scurried
With the creep of night and moan
Of oceans slide, mangled clouds
Clutched the murky burn of sky
And smallish eyes everywhen
Shuddered in the frosts
Of a shuttering rose.
.
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 5:51 PM UTC
Drastic measures must be taken to overcome the afternoon lull.
Seventeen obscure hardbound essays to consume, spines flaking
and half-eaten by dustmites. Their goodies
can only be extracted by torture, but my instruments are dulled
by shriekless hours and the fuddy-duddies
beside me, who god help me I’ll never become,
though I’m already bearded, and have started showing some dome.
Time, I think, to give something back:
a single bogie on a lone mission
to retake Stevens’ Noble Rider and the Sound of Words.
A big ask, I reckon, but this mischievous frisson
is deepness: It’ll probably be half, or at least a third
of my life before anyone finds my sleeper, my double agent
Amongst horses shedding their coats for the summer.
I smile at no one in particular, and return to my stack.
Keyboards clatter like rain, drowning out what little glamour
remains of the microfiche, leaping silent
over centuries in a smallish room in the corner.
Oct 22, 2011
Oct 22, 2011 at 6:49 AM UTC
I long
like
something plush weeping
into a pillowed hug
of empty oxygen
though I try the Brave Game,
(and usually win)
flakes of me run
off my arms and face
and scrounge around the corners of the room
looking for your mellow sting.
supposedly,
“heartache”
is figurative.
But I definitely feel
a s t r e t c h i n g
mush
right where
the Doctors say my heart
should probably be
a slight tremor
( echoes )
through every joint
of my toy frame,
like a thousand elfin voices talking
about your favorite foods,
and the color of your hugs.
the tightening
muscles of my throat
send their regards to your
amicable eyes
2.5 is a smallish bird
when one observes
the blue expanse of my ocean life
but it pecks my most tender tissues
when I sit [flat] inside Today.
I miss
like
someone resized my skin
incompetently.
though I am grateful
for your delicate absence
(the elusive Good deserves you most)
I feel as if
the petty bird’s wing tensions
won’t be satisfied
with the look of my dappled shoulders
till you stroke them densely
with your matter-of-fact fingers.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 6:19 PM UTC
Spontaneity, in family one, the little one exudes
Her brother, kindness reigns in him, you will not find him rude
And in between, their sister, with her sensitivity
O’er all, a loving group they are, this little family.
Family two brings determination, in a package oh, so small
Preceded by devotion, in a brother growing tall
The tallest one, shows honesty, in him there is no doubt
The last of this group, not the least, her smile comes bubbling out.
In family three, a smallish one, she shows such bravery
While older sister, stands ***** steadfastness we can see
The curious one, her questions fly, she just can’t get enough
And last of all, the funny one, and in most sports he’s tough.
This group is not a tranquil bunch, they often raise the roof
Indeed, my patience sometimes dims, my grey hair is the proof.
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 2:49 AM UTC
Oh great Ophiuchus,
you stand there mighty above us,
all nights, collapsed in the collapsible
container sky. We do
look up to you, Ophiuchus,
as other-worldly worries nestle us
into our nested doll
worlds. Though Ophiuchus, we must
ask again, what it is you can give us
while your sculpted arms keep
a coiling beast at bay? Go on,
let go. Let go of it, Ophiuchus.
Your strong hands can point us
back, just when our need walks forward,
to a stone-laid patio where broad browns
empty into vast blues,
and our wise Hypatia sits
nose in books. Woe it is, Ophiuchus,
she’s so oblivious,
to those shouts of a smallish mob,
their small minds squeezed by greedy Christian lands.
They pad to her on paws
well-provided with ostraca
claws, and next morning the mourner jackdaw
will refuse to withdraw
its usual caw from a flawed
maw that couldn’t warn her, the time’s off. It’s now
it seems, Ophiuchus,
the day’s come, though the daw’s left us,
when clay heads will fall at golden feet. But
Ophiuchus, do please
tell us, can we focus? After
these many centuries, Ophiuchus,
can we learn to focus,
and on our own keep the constant
nips of the present-preened serpents at bay?
Mar 16, 2011
Mar 16, 2011 at 11:32 AM UTC
Young child with your doughnut smile,
Your cockiness and native guile,
Here's some stuff with an 'S' to look out for
A smallish list to even the score,
In what you'll know is an unfair life:
Sufficient knowledge of Machiavellian strife,
Scissored words to cut the crap,
String and sticks to lay your traps,
Shell to listen to when adults blare,
Stone to polish whilst they glare,
Sleekly concealed hiding places,
Several artless piteous faces,
Sack to carry your thievings well,
Starched hankie for its awesome smell,
Salve to nurse your nascent pride,
Style enough to say "I lied",
Sharp pin in shoe-toe to kick any creeps,
Soles of rubber for super-huge leaps,
Some allies of similarly toughened mien,
Strong butter-toffees to keep the allies keen,
Stories of your devious plans to pass the time...
Since i'm tired now of trying to rhyme
This is where i leave you, small human being
Find the **** things and smash the adult fiends,
And when you're done, just wait for me
Next time we'll look at things with a 'T'.
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 7:02 AM UTC
In a window over Mortem Street,
I see the sun with a mouth pursed
In envy of the way that you go around
And glow all the time,
The smallish girl with
Ebony eyes and reddish lips
Which turn the head of every fool,
Myself a fool among them.
In a window over Mortem Street
You can see me here, too,
Looking out on the soft avenue
Made softer by you.
In that window over Mortem Street,
I watched the others smell the roses
And never smelled one.
You deserve every rose,
And maybe I could drop them by one day,
When maybe your glow is low enough
And I can catch your eye in the window.
And maybe Mortem Street
Won’t be so lonely anymore.
Jan 2, 2021
Jan 2, 2021 at 2:47 AM UTC
The ten commandments say nothing,
in the translations I’ve read,
against coveting my neighbor’s good
fortune,
timing,
intentions,
sense of style,
or the countless other intangibles
gifted by Nature
and our DNA's mischievous inventions.
I’m a strict constructionist,
when it suits me, and especially so
with documents carved in stone
by invisible hands
having no recorded fondness for the market.
I’d trade places with any nameless witch
caught cavorting in her coven’s canopied oases,
their cauldron-ringing capers
and care-free cackles cheered
by owl hoots and cricket song;
Or the smallish, self-sacrificing spider
who rather than a cigarette gets a close-up
view of his mate’s spinnerets dispensing
the silk sheets to wrap him
as a happy meal deferred.
I also envy their creepy hatchlings
who weeks later will climb to the tip-tops
of firry fingers, cast a single wistful thread
and wait for the wish-fulfilling wind
to carry them lifetimes away.
That’s how I could stiff this chill
that taps me on the shoulder, and chase
after a far-off warmth I’ve weened
since my weaning was done.
I count these covets no sins.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:37 AM UTC
Green moss thick and dark, grows slowly
The wild flowers rise and reach, to catch the breeze
Lichen lie low a laclustre collect, on the rock and lee
There are no walls, the barriers and possibilities are natures' ways
The birds sing among the Wisteria, to attract the mysterious
The wild flower petals open sun-wide to receive the bees
The tiniest things of nature, can confound the human mind
Insect, animal, and human are not the only occupants
The birds fly to chase and catch a meal, then return fastidious
E'er so often you may imagine, to see with disbelief, smallish things
Clear blue above, yet does your head not heavy grow, give in
It is not your tired eyes, that fool with faerie sized inhabitants,
Did you see the Twinkles moving, from the corner of your eye
Breathe, soft and become the meadow grasses long and tall
Clouded vision, any friend of nature, finds a pillow, live long
I have been to this very meadow, seems just recently,
Green moss thick and dark, grows slowly
Skin so soft petals enrich all dreams, on waking without the fall
Lichen lie low a lacklustre collect, on the rock and lee
© DWE20150416
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
Grat, smat, tack.
my windows are black.
and the raven (that raven)
comes insatiably back
and the windows and caskets
and smallish ash-baskets
(you'd better believe that they know what their task is)
are holding the pieces, the embers, the sound
and hollowing portions we make in the ground
are the sickly embrace;
a dismembering hug
of a small, hump-backed hobo
without heart or a lung.
and his eye-hollows burn
for to end Adam’s race
and so often I wonder
How the fleetest of foot
can’t find the footing
to escape.
have you ever wondered
"what if I died tomorrow"
the earth would still twirl
and seven billion of her people
would never stop to cry.
They didn't even know
that you were alive.
but that's fine.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 3:41 PM UTC
My oldest cell is pushing seven
and it's time for it to go!
That's just the way it is, pal;
the new kids need have their day.
Perhaps I could spare a smallish speech
to fete the good times and bad -
days amazingly graced
scaling some testy peak or other.
Not all dawns were rosy strewn
but you, dear friend held fort -
cloaking my back through
bitter days of tears and dread.
A favor of you if you please:
when you go,
please stow a portion
of my sorrows in your pack.
and let the new boys have
a sunshine day or season.
We all could use the break.
So "Adios, Amigo,"
Thanks for dancing on my stage.
August, 2013
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 4:59 PM UTC
Simple, smallish thoughts,
Held so high by the clueless,
. . . Now trend on HP.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 8:32 PM UTC
Late night at the Bar,
The neon sign said time to go,
Funny, when I got there it was all
Welcoming and overenthusiastic,
Garish, like a parade of clowns
With balloons that just got lost
Loosed, to the winds. I had a few—
Too many and wrote a broke poem,
All alone surrounded by the clank
Of wood from a pole and clicks of levers
As the glistening 'patrons' shimmied their
Tithes to the used machines of *****
Pinned and the green tables pooled
And the women, who desperately looked
At only you, after you looked at them
And the indifferent, tallish Barman,
Who kept pouring smallish dreams
In a shot glass. I stumbled, swirled out
And kissed the tar as was my want,
Every newcomer slogging in
Simply ran with not even noticing,
As I laid on the ground, they knew
That their time was soon coming.
That's called simpatico, or is it
Solidarity, maybe, whatever?
Anywho, I dusted my self off
And hightailed it back home
Before the broad, my old lady,
Jezebel, caught me on the sly.
The 'Queen of Sheba' was already
There— prostrated on our bed
Waiting to nail me. My only excuse,
The muses— she wasn't buying,
I said baby, 'I ain't tryin' to sell
You no lie. The words, they come
And they go, like a train that never stops
But you bestbe going, you best be jump in'
On that steel Goliath and ride that son to the gates
Of pearl and peace, them goldilock rays and then I said,
Hush, my little 'rock-a-bye' lady, you shush now,
My fresh night moon of lilly flower, we's gonna
Make like nubile creatures, all naked and free,
There ain't no clocks little darling, there's
Just you an' me and all the rest of herstory,'
She bought that line!
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 11:30 PM UTC