"spidering" poems
Just the thought of them makes your jawbone ache:
those turkey dinners, those holidays with
the air around the woodstove baked to a stupor,
and Aunt Lil's tablecloth stained by her girlhood's gravy.
A doggy wordless wisdom whimpers from
your uncles' collected eyes; their very jokes
creak with genetic sorrow, a strain
of common heritage that hurts the gut.
Sheer boredom and fascination! A spidering
of chromosomes webs even the infants in
and holds us fast around the spread
of rotting food, of too-sweet pie.
The cousins buzz, the nephews crawl;
to love one's self is to love them all.
9.7k
A quiet, broken smile graced her lips
And to the everyday it looked quite convincing
But it was deceiving because
At the moment she was
Indeed shattering, putting herself back
And shattering more
If her innards were out
You could see the spidering veins around her piteous heart
Of continual cracking
And if you looked close, without doubt
You could see, the original point of impact
And you'd know
There was nothing we could do for her
She passed on site, and time of death had been called
So had her former lover.
Although his response, 'I'm sorry, who?' was particularly painful.
But in his defense I will say that he was being the most honest of all of us.
I felt that I should've written something significant and profound for this morose little girl
But all that came was unworthy.
Instead I took the dear child to the place where I found most comfort.
There we lain in a decrepit old graveyard trying to relate to the dead.
Marble mausoleums mimicking my nightly resting place.
I happened upon a black witch moth which had gracened us with his company.
I sat there enraptured watching his nonsensical trail.
As he began his decent I had a most unsettling feeling nothing to do with countless bodies under head.
Upon a glistening tomb he made beautiful land.
I suddenly found myself creeping onward, praying reprieve.
The mariposa de la muerte fluttered not but an inch.
As I realized his demise, I gazed back to my bride
Only to find a black hooded shape disappear as I focused with a painfully sharp tone of finality.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 7:31 PM UTC
Small pebbles crash through ashen skies,
So intricate and divine.
They pitter patter the pane.
Window pane;
Inner pain.
Cracked and spidering;
The sensation remains the same.
Snapping crisp twigs like heartstrings.
Plucking the chords on this beating violin,
A somber sound barrels around cathedral ceilings,
Dripping melodies in pools at the edges of cold lips.
Victorian grace with hippie peace.
What a hollow sound without the clash of chaos you bring.
Oil and water, emulsified.
Fire and ice, married.
Beautiful chaos, skyward bound.
Earth to ash, burried.
Dec 28, 2022
Dec 28, 2022 at 9:10 AM UTC
We encountered a white-tiled wall whose
purity lingered behind earthly browns,
salmon, grass, lavender acrylic paint. And this frozen scene chilled like hot breath on winter
glass, soil-mixed dividing stories of young, smiley-touched
girls whose hair was flaxen hills in
the country and whose
eyes were opalescent azures whose opalescence
was truly the only sign of thought beyond a
glassy grin.
Porcelain doll made of giggles and bubbles.
She fanned her fingers in a glorious sky and leaf peacock-feathered exuberance and pawed at the dry, gritty scene of a sailboat floundering towards a sunset.
She sees this world feelingly – one touch, two touch
Her smile is prayer-folded hands extending across her own little world
A prayer for this textured caricature of a little girl,
a happy puppet stuck until dark,
like the form the woman she’ll soon become
with her child-like fingers spidering across the stories she hopes to [but never will] tell.
Her dusty hands against the comforting tinge of a watermelon’s epicenter.
So pink, so raw, so vulnerable with the valor of another brush’s turn.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 7:11 PM UTC
I'll like to think that we are all glass figures, people, whatever.
We are fragile, delicate, malleable when heated, at times we can be coolly transparent.
But the undeniable truth that we always come back to is that we can all
break.
Under pressure- the sort that splinters pieces of wide-eyed innocence and hope, the kind of disappointment so pale, you can see it in their skin- it results into little fissures of weaknesses spidering out into ugly cross-roads. Which I think we will inevitably walk on.
And suddenly, with those gaping cracks,
we are no longer quite so impervious to
the bad or the good.
Frankly, as sickeningly cliche this may sound, it is universally accepted that it is the very inside that will start to bleed into those crossroads.
So, yeah, it is the inside that counts.
And I wish I could have learnt that without cutting my hands
red and raw
on these broken shards of glass.
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 8:33 AM UTC
I wasn't raised as a lady
with three brothers and a father to tie me down
and beat sense into my girlish mind.
But early illuminations
brought dark realizations-
as it seems a fool is favored.
Feathered eyelids and buttered cheeks
of these I knew nothing.
Clumsy drugstore purchases
to paint a face too young into beauty.
The type they want to look at.
Braces be gone!
Glasses, so long!
Sear these curls with an iron!
So there, cursed mirror of murmurs!
The type they want to look at!
Nay!
He says that's not enough.
And who am I to stop his hand
spidering up my skirt.
This is it.
The type they want to touch.
Wash your face off
and all the scents and spots
of whoever he was.
Some are too deep,
it seems they have seeped.
*The type they want to ****
You'll ruin your sheets
if you cry like that-
motherless infant.
You cannot always need,
you'll be the type they want to leave.
Jun 24, 2013
Jun 24, 2013 at 1:23 AM UTC
Walking across a frozen pond
When it begins to crack.
Knowing what will happen,
You fight to run back.
But the foundation you stand on
Is spidering faster than you your feet can carry you
And the ice you seek to flee from
Was not made to be escaped,
But you refuse to succumb to it's commands
Getting back up each time it's slippery surface
Grabs your feet and brings you down
to meet it's cold heartless complexion
And the cold grows more paralyzing with each fall
Making it more difficult to get back to your feet
All the while, in the back of your mind is
The knowledge of the imminent break
That will send you falling into the
Inescapable icy black depths of numbness
Yet, for a reason unknown to you,
Despite the unavoidable doom you are fated with,
You deny to give up.
And you're not sure whether to call it strength,
Or tragic naïveté.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
we are the dampened muddy leaves
Littering Forrest floors in that
Time that's not quite yet winter
But not quite still fall
We are the pebbles at the bottom
Of an ancient river
Being eaten away at with each
Passing current
We are the spidering cracks
in the ice coating the ground
Inviting some unfortunate stranger
To come lose traction on our surface
We are the veins inside the
Flower stem
Begging for recognition past the
Garish petals who get all the notice
We are nothing
And we are everything
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 12:47 PM UTC
I wish I had the courage
to pull a knife across my skin,
I wish I had a way
to keep the hurt from seeping in.
I wish I could wash the sink
and watch water turn red
covered up with band-aids
as to not stain sheets on bed.
I wish I could look at the scars
spidering up my arm,
I wish I could be brave enough
to do myself real harm.
But then I think about my friends
and it seems a sin
to try to hurt myself at all
it's really giving in.
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 12:40 AM UTC
There is a fear resting on this brain
Fear of obsolescence too young
Use used up too early
Spidering across my mind's eye
It is
Unsettling
To be old at a young age
In body & mind
The mirror shows your youth but
Cannot discover the years within
Everyone says "You're so young you have your whole life ahead of you!"
(It's such an oxymoron, your whole life is only ever behind you... If people cared to think they would learn this)
Young
young
y o u n g
Is it just a number?
Do I have to bury friends and family before I'm considered old?
Where is the invisible threshold that I must have passed when I was a child? Or a teen?
I haven't pocketed my third decade but my
HEART
is
HEAVY
I long to die but I'm scared to die so I just want to die so I stop thinking about death all the time. People will get over me.
If I'm (un)lucky my words won't be remembered
Most words are memories we want to forget
Yet we write them down
To the deep parts of our souls
Etch them in our marble foundations
Hoping out dreams will show them some nights
But I want to forget it all
I'm old ******
If you don't believe me ask my friends
If you don't believe them ask the dead
If you don't believe them stop reading
Because you were never listening in the first place
Just waiting for your turn to talk
To say I'm nonsensical
To eNcOuRaGe mE to lOoK fOrWaRd
When forward doesn't exist yet
By the time it does it's just more minutes
Stacked on my back
Days stacked on my back
Months stacked
Years stacked
Until you call me old
and I tell you I've been here the whole time
(You just chose not to believe)
May 30, 2019
May 30, 2019 at 11:29 AM UTC
there are ribbons of light threaded in your hair
and the clock ticks are synchronized with your touch
I don’t know about the things you used to whisper to me
for now, all I know is how your hellos used to feel
and maybe it’s 3am and it’s too early for you to go
so I’ll ask you to stay until we can get lost again
it’s late to say goodbye now for I left without a word
don’t ask me to stay if you already know that I won’t
I don’t want to get lost again cause I’m trying to find myself
been broken by the consequences I had when I was with you
cold coffee and troubled stares
trying to find the life I lost in our cracked walls
the song we used to yell while cruising in cars
lost in the quiet sadness of the rain
our knees bump against each other and we don’t pull them away
and I keep saying sorry but you don’t hear anything I say
memories keep flashing
I’m trying to shake them off
I know that it’s best when we’re both apart
we keep on hurting each other with words we don’t mean
a sorry won’t fix what’s already been done
when I left I know you’ll be okay
we’ll both be free of what’s been keeping us chained
I loved you for a long time but I know it’s time to let you go
I know you’re already unhappy
you’re just afraid to be alone
but maybe alone is not what I fear
maybe I can’t stand the idea of you being removed from my words
all those years of sunshine so I knew I needed your rain
and maybe your storms were not enough
to chase away the emptiness of the light
I know that you’re a strong independent woman
but what you can’t let go was the fun memories we had
you cling to the words and you dwell in your thoughts
you know you’re so much more than that
but you refuse to take hold of that
we both knew that you don’t need me
but you don’t want to believe that
it’s better this way
we could be on our own, fixing ourselves on our separate ways
why would you run back to the person who broke you?
we both know that the circumstances won’t be better if ever I come back
broken is all I’ve known
cracks spidering across paint-splattered porcelain
and I didn’t mind that I crumbled in your hands
you used to look at me like you knew what I once was
and in all my dreams you drowned me
but I couldn’t take any other hand but yours
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 6:43 AM UTC
a spidering across my face, that mooned mirrored moment.
raising from sleep dreamed , dashed my hand to move it,
sadly this morning find the remains stain, detritus with remorse.
radio news says the evacuation from aleppo is delayed.
history repeats itself.
spider.
sbm.
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 12:59 AM UTC
Lovely Tours
Miriam
says to me
maybe we
can look round
you and me
sure
I say
and so when
the coach stops
we get out
and wander
keeping close
to others
from our coach
the hippie
couple there
out in front
he bearded
with a band
round his head
and his girl
with long hair
hanging loose
both smoking
Miriam
takes my hand
her own hand
small and warm
pulse going
her red hair
all tight curls
her bright eyes
over me
isn't it
exciting?
I don't do
exciting
I just look
and take in
and enjoy
I tell her
we walk on
through the streets
look in shops
look at stuff
she holds things
in her hands
handles them
values them
like last night
in the coach
in Paris
lying down
in our seats
us kissing
her fingers
exploring
my hot crotch
my fingers
spidering
up her thigh
as music
on the coach
radio
eases out
Beethoven’s
piano piece
concerto
number 5
or such like
and she's there
holding me
my fingers
spidering
to her nest
lights dim low
music flows
down the rows
of coach seats
some sleeping
some talking
some of us
making out
best we can
in dim light
in Paris
over night.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 4:22 AM UTC
Burnt
Severing pain on my shoulders
Thighs
Arms
And face
Giving me warmth but also making me cold
Spidering along my skin
Is what it feels like
Heat waves in certain places
Think when you swim outside
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 2:23 AM UTC
Bleeding buffers,
pressed against
a world that pictures...
ramifying colors--
spidering glass that crackles.
What a beautiful
headdress.
Stasis of newness,
plus and minus the
headiness of years.
Jan 1, 2017
Jan 1, 2017 at 1:48 AM UTC
Storm clouds.
Grey.
Black.
Flashing lightning.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5--
Rumbling thunder.
It chills your bones.
Shouting.
Yelling.
A man's voice.
A child's soft, muffled cry.
Cold skin.
Chills
Spidering up and down my spine
Over and over and over.
A woman sobbing softly.
Flashing lightning.
1. 2. 3--
Rumbling thunder.
Cold wind.
Rain.
It falls in sheets.
Feels like little blades of ice
Piercing my skin.
Screaming.
Slamming doors.
Cars driving away.
Gravel.
A child wailing.
It fades into a soft, distant whimper.
There aren't enough tissues for all their tears.
The wind picks up.
It howls.
Trees bend to its' will.
Some threaten to fall.
The rain comes down harder,
Faster.
Like sheets of bullets.
They're so cold,
I almost don't feel them.
I almost feel nothing.
And nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing
And then: You.
And then there was you.
Sunlight,
Straining through Autumn clouds.
Yellow and red and orange leaves.
Birds building nests,
Chirping back and forth.
Squirrels foraging for food for the coming Winter,
Scurrying up and down trees.
Warm spiced apple cider.
Silence,
Except for the soft, colder breeze.
Except for the purring of a cat,
The slight kneading of their drowsy paws.
Except for the soft snoring of a dog,
His occasional half-asleep woof.
Except for pages turning,
A pen gliding its' ink across thick parchment.
Typewriter keys clacking.
Silence.
Except for your footsteps coming through the front door
And down the hall.
Nothing.
And then there was you.
There never was anyone else.
Aug 28, 2017
Aug 28, 2017 at 3:25 PM UTC
Primary to pastel
to lights, darks
to static and noise
to nothing.
The old man ice-axes
memory mountain.
Some echo, some glimpse
of all he's lost
is all he seeks.
But all there is
in unpictured void,
scuttling, spidering
denying the light -
a parasite alphabet
barring windows
spinning webs -
the words for which
he once was famous
******* the juice from
all they ever meant.
While lesser spectres
span the spectrum
dreams and photons
undrowned in ink.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 8:23 AM UTC
I watched as your webbed nest grew
In the branch of the front yard tree
A plague of squirming brood
Not that a web of a spidering
Yours was much too thick
As I braved a finger, fear quelled
Skipped on using a stick
Strong and sturdy she held
“Are these caterpillars?”
You asked, I replied
“I think they are.”
You asked for the destruction of civilization
“You need to cut these down.”
“I can’t, I been watching them grow,
Watching this web slowly take over.
Now I see on every tree
When I’m out driving
Their villages
Where they live
Feeding off the leaves
If these are so common
Why are butterflies so rare?”
You responded with no care
“They are ugly, I don’t like them.”
I watched the rest of that tree
Be consumed
I hope that plague
Becomes beautiful soon
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 4:57 PM UTC
If only words could bring the dead back to life.
If only that mother could tell her baby girl she was so sorry that she only now understood that you didn't have to have a reason to feel hopelessly broken and that she was sorry that she never believed that not knowing how to fix those broken pieces, because you didn't know why they were broken, could ever be listed as a cause of death. And if only that woman weeping, laying naked clutching a picture of a smiling girl preserved in her youth forever, could say something that would give her one more chance to get to see her baby light up the room with the sunbeams that always shone out through the spidering cracks in the black glass shell of a perpetual hurt that covered her so completely that the space around her became listed as the only place on earth where no trace of heat or oxygen ever existed.
If only words could bring the dead back to life.
And if only this poem was actually about my mother and I. If only this poem wasn't really about how my chest cavity feels like it's filled with water because I'm afraid I will never find the words to bring you back to me.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:29 AM UTC
The loving stretch of your cloudy fingers,
your welcoming cob-web eyes.
How they haunt,
shake salt from the limb,
sweep up leaves in courtyards, and
carry their eclipse to the brink of me.
Tree’s circumcised by gardener time
poke forks at you ,
scrape your soft full plate
with the chafe of spidering knuckles.
Everything the flavour of sun-set is a plea.
What can I do when the wing of you
has nothing to say
but fall in reverse,
have you no pity,
you do nothing but sleep, yawn
and blink back your triumph.
Where are the places
I might squeeze you
into submission:
windows only take in so much.
Just once I’d have you secede at my feet,
break bread with the best of me;
release this enthralled impatience.
I starve for some light conversation
but you practise your zen enchantment,
practise it right in front of me
day after day after day.
Show mercy.
Crush me,
do something.
I want you to fall.
MChallis © 2015
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 5:49 AM UTC
A small pebble of grief lodges into my skin
Splintering it, not yet cracked
A waft of sadness floats upon the splinter
Cracking my being
Working it's way from my chest, up to my neck, my face, my head
Down my stomach, my legs, my feet
My arms, my hands
Spidering it's way over my body
As though I am a marble statue hit with the mason's hammer
From this I shatter into pieces
Unrecognizable
I spew into the air
My sobs carry myself with the four winds
I shall never be whole again
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 11:19 AM UTC
god made your head balloon with recognition
pouring these shots of friday we've been sipping on
and i, a needy god of my respectful own
have yet to make an effort to improve upon
a clever poem
or an able song
a yes-please-thank-you point of view
with no-please-thank-you dolours
relating red to wounds and rowan trees
relating sapphire to the social structures
of the all-embracing web
and camouflaging with disruptive sets of colours
the weekend's not so far away, routinely
spidering past, each season at a matching pace
and i, a needy god in my imperfect place
have yet to make an effort to avoid distress
no rationale, just
in whichever case
all you will have to do is wish
yourself upon this mountain
relating pink to acts of human aid
relating green to all the times you, grinning
johnny-cashed your green in - then
married the gold, married the endless shouting
Sep 13, 2019
Sep 13, 2019 at 7:21 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]
Tropes, Dopes, Middle-Earth, and Culture Worriers
I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of
Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware
none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or
any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are
enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I
regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.
-Tolkien, from a letter rebuking a German publisher, 1938
One does not imagine Tolkien schlubbing about
In a garish cartoon tee and baggy shorts
A Glock strapped to his 50-inch waist
Shopping the dollar store in a Trumpy cap
One does not imagine Lewis following QAnon
Encouraging Peter to take an AR to Latin class
Or quartering the Cross of good Saint George
With a swastika’s spidering wheel of shame
Not all evil comes from outside the Shire –
Sometimes evil is our own internal desire
On the time J.R.R. Tolkien refused to work with Nazi-leaning publishers. ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)
Why does Lord of the Rings appeal to the radical right? – The Irish Times
Behind the Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex | Vanity Fair
Sep 11, 2024
Sep 11, 2024 at 2:02 PM UTC
you are moonlight kissed, and—
yes, moonlight kissed
and I, in winds, solidly see
beads of my beloved grief strung
in stranger fingers
spidering around reckless on strings—
and waves waves tiding, in ecstasy woven
by violins I dare not learn, by flutes seeping, and sitars
calling home a bird astray
Vivaldi: a dry Storm sob that will not blossom,
not, not, will not— twig fingers curl to taut fists as— Winter
dribbles down on the ragged red throat and
night like silk
silk silk— silks on silks opaque! Ah—
the troughs and oily hills zigzagging
through the air
and violins turn to pinpricked limbs
and strums strums skipping
tugging cruel and tearing—
plucking tendons, plucking desperate and fast
-
you are moonlight kissed as
the silver blush is teased
by sea-creatures’ scaled splashes—
a thousand good griefs tossed to air;
but I am body only
two woody legs folded in a branching of arms
next to the trunk that timidly breathes, next
to the fist-sized squirrel—
my roots like cold fat moles curled up
symphonies rush by giggling
and I do not tremble
Jan 22, 2022
Jan 22, 2022 at 4:42 AM UTC