"spikey" poems
I sit on my back stoop,
alone in the moonless dark
lit only by a window glowing
in my neighbor's new spa room.
Spikey tropical plants.
backlit by warm yellow light
are all I can see
from my vantage point
only yards away.
But my imagination runs
to visions of two lovers
delighting in their newest acquisition,
bathing in clouds
of fragrant steam,
a couple still together.
They have each other,
while I sit alone,
me minus you.
Eileen Auger
4/4/2010
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC
There was once a small ape called Peter
He was brown like the trees in your yard
He had a few spikey hairs on the top of his head
And thousands upon thousands on his arms
He wasn't just your ordinary ape though
He had big bushy eyebrows
And deep dark green eyes
He was shorter than other apes
But he didn't mind
Because he knew he was special
His mother told him so
She told him every single day
Before he would go to leave
Leave to go to ape school
To study his Ape Bee Seas
He often wondered whether,
one day she would stop
Then one day his mother did
That was once he'd grown up
And now he is a big ape he longs to hear those words
So when your mother repeats something
It's so it sinks in
and you never forget what they've told you
So pay attention and listen.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 6:10 PM UTC
Sitting in the bath once again, small blue pad in hand, bit of plastic as support, I write this poem. Albert Cat demands a bit of attention and pad slides into the water. I grab a bit of toilet paper to blot it. That makes it worse. So, blurred and vague, I reconstruct it, using magnifying glasses (2!) while watching the evening news. Here it is:
I Like Facebook
I like Facebook. I don’t know exactly why.
I like looking at the pictures,
Friends I’d never meet another way.
I like friendly messages,
Passages of verse I’d never read
If not for Facebook’s lead.
I like Likes and Comments kind,
Find in comments rich expressions.
Possibly I’m one of few - or few new millions.
I’m inspired when tired, fired up.
Even when I’ve written ‘crap’
No one’s there to trap me.
Some reviewer always sees my views,
Understands.
Someone always sends
Me praise; ends with a Like.
I’ve never had a spikey word;
Cordiality is all I’ve ever read or heard.
Commonality forever somewhere, there
Where someone wants to start a group.
Always somebody to whoop de whoop:
Somewhere folk who populate;
A troupe with common passions.
Then there are the monthly Happys:
Happy Birthdays, Christmases and Easters…
Never had one word rescinded.
Reminded gently daily:
Classmates, playmates
I’d forgotten, dovetailed,
Blazoned on the psyche;
Friends and places,
And of course, the faces -
It is Facebook, after all; the key, the glee,
A source of history.
As for weaknesses I’ve read about –
Never think to route them out,
Going ‘bout my business,
Focused on creativeness,
The lofty and the small.
I like Facebook.
Happy Facebook to you all!
I Like Facebook 3.31.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 4:01 PM UTC
I found your apologies along with a lighter in my pocket
the night I burned you away
Both were deep down in there.
Below the forgiveness
It was squeezed between the pieces of your broken promises
Collaged into the parts of my shattered heart
I found them folded into love letters
And engraved into the anxiety marks your lies left in me
I dug them out of the hole your deceiving left in the back of my mind
Buried right next to suspicion
I found your explanations hid beneath the mental memories of teeth
They never quite fit together
I saw them in the picture show behind my eyes
I’ve recklessly recreated to many times
I felt your callused pleads for forgiveness on my fingertips
after I pricked my pointer on your spikey “I didn’t do its”
I slipped on your confessions
nearly drowned in what could’ve been
Luckily, I realized before it was too late, that water is infinitely too deep
As is the pools of sympathy I had for you but never had for me
I used that lighter to smoke a cigarette that was packed down as well as your stories
You always exhaled like a script for the movie I’ve seen to many times called
“Please feel bad for me”
I found your I’m sorrys on the bottom my shoe
after I kicked the crap out of my “welcome to walk on me” mat
I threw away and replaced with a banner reading “please don’t come back soon”
I can’t claim I don’t know but I can say this feeling is new
Never thought you had what it takes to make me give up on you
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 2:29 AM UTC
Within his icy palace
In a world covered with snow
On a throne as clear as crystal glass
Sat jack frost that we know
With hair of spikey icicles
And pale white skin so cold
This tale of when he met the sun
Is about now to be told...
As jack sat there in silence
Through the window came a glow
He tried to guess just what it was
But really had to know ?
So frosty opened up the door
To see what could be found ?
Stood puzzled by the sight he saw
Of puddles on the ground ?
Curious and curious he stepped into the light
He felt a little strange at first but seemed to be allright
After a life of being chilled and always being cold
This was a new sensation so he addressed the sun so bold...
" Your warmth oh how it changes me and makes me feel anew...
Please shine your golden rays on me and warm my body through "
The sun gleamed down and spoke a truth !
That jack frost surely felt...
" Your'e foolish if you choose to stay for you will surely melt !"
"Oh! cried jack frost in that case i'll quickly take my leave
And ran back through the palace door and closed it with a heave !!
Then jack frost sat back on his throne and pondered for a while
"Thankyou Sun i was a fool !" and grinned a warming smile !
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 3:12 PM UTC
I fell over at the weekend,
Fell clenching a rope
That was no longer there to support
And so it didn't,
And James hit the deck with a thud,
And it hurt if I'm honest,
Knocked the wind right from me
And sent shock waves
Through every *****
Every sinew vein and muscle,
As I lay there with a
Worrying spikey pain,
I wondered whether I was damaged
Or just jarred,
Okay or out of the game,
But then the cameras came out
And so did pride
And pragmatism,
And a rapid standing up
Because - well - you know....
This is not the first time I have fallen
And probably wont be the last,
Because **** happens like that
in life and just the same in love,
Because stuff,
And people,
Will always
Let you
Down
Jan 25, 2024
Jan 25, 2024 at 5:33 AM UTC
no bleak
no gravel
no granary
flushed upward flossed through the cloud
proud of our colourful obituary
but there's nothing to hold us here
fear nothing wary
no feline attention
no canary to fulfil the coal mine
just the foggy cotton of perspiration and no cling
so we are benign to respond
rung to sense
to physics
to every-mans gravity
no grieve
no manner
no calamity
just plummet
and wind sore
and sun-bleached torn clothing
and dread of developing horrors
perhaps collision with unwanted human company
no paid way into outer space
jest descent
you flounder for memories
to flutter before eyes
instead you are battered by collage
an old video game console the cat peed on
clips you fragrant between the eyes
a set of your golf clubs in their bag
winds you hugging in the gut
(did you ever play golf ?)
so much more product and then the car
Jeep Grand Cherokee colour burgundy
draws level
doors hung open to the yap of history
grateful and familiar you take to its back seat
pull over a tarp and sleep
but its all crushed apart
and you face again
the plunge
turning corpses of hills below
the quaking landscape bellows "NO!"
and patches of spikey urban ventilation
all gush to volunteer you
***** toward your voice
that's screams also 'No!'
but realize
the voice
of the
earth
screams rowdier
and on a weeping in-breath
to replenish
Jun 20, 2022
Jun 20, 2022 at 1:39 PM UTC
Around the pool of chandelier light the movers and shakers gathered
in tight knots, unwilling to untangle from the policy books
intent on pushing fences further out into the Caspian Sea
across the Black Sea and encircling the whole Artic Circle
from latitude whatever to wherever.
The chief fence maker arrived with a pair of pliers
and rolls of barbed wire twenty thousand posts
and a battalion of unnamed soldiers all hiding
behind masks of make-up
" Now listen, people, roll out that spikey wire starting from here
to eternity and keep going around the globe until you return
five hundred years to meet the beginning with the end!"
A few bald heads bowed but wary of cross-hairs
hiding along the ceiling behind sharpshooting
shapeshifters.
They knew instinctively, that unbowed head may be bowled
over and transported to Siberia in a meat wagon
for permanent freezing with the mastodons.
"Go Now, do not turn back, ever, or you will become
a pillar of salt."
The band played The Last Post
as the last post rolled out.
Peace began as soon as the war ended
and the fences were built around the entire
Northern Hemisphere.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
The magic released from your fingertips purr like spikey legs of a cricket, and although the pitch can be quite much, at least it fills the defeaning silence. And that's better than nothing.
It's everything compared to nothing
See, it's a different type of suffering.
As cardinal as the cardinals sing,
sound still sounds more radiant from your mouth; light as a cloud and tempting as the devil's cake, but it's much too **** loud for this headache.
Just as a hummingbird you urge each redundant peck deeper, and with it comes a blatant crooked creek. It's such a lovely repeat to wake up to, but the minute reality sets in I just want to shake you and retreat back to sleep so sound.
Retreat back to sound as sleep.
My cloudy head floats peeking at your ground,
and I can't make up my mind when your earth is bringing it down.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
Excuse me,
Can I squeeze past your apathy?
Get to the heart of everything,
Where spikey pillows
Lay on gravel beds.
Do you want to paint the town red?
Or purple, most likely.
Won't press into
Reforming bruises,
But you'll be elsewhere anyway,
Too far for clinging
Fingers to wiggle out,
And grasp sturdy hands
For support on the balance beam.
The composed serenity,
Laughter and glee
A marvelous masquerade
Covering the demons in me
That you know well.
But I'll set down my baggage
To fit between stolen seconds,
To sit in hand in hand
Silence.
Our heartbeats meeting at the palms
Sewn to lovers
Beckoning you with magic
Tricks I can't replicate
When begging for morsels of reciprocation,
And chastising myself
For expectations.
Silly sullen child,
Waving toys at you,
Please play with me,
Drop a line,
Drop your excuses,
For dropping promises in the dirt.
Wish they'd turn to dust
Rather than sinking me
Through lightning sand,
Sprinkled with shards
Of broken glassy hands.
Can you feel my desperation?
Like when we were
Interwoven in ineffable stagnancy,
Stifled in sticky still summer air,
Muffling every sound
From this moldy mouth.
But it's an orchestra in my mind,
Dissonant dirge repeating it's chorus
Into infinite insanity.
Call it like you see it, darling
But I've already
Drawn my line in your sandy heart.
We're both treading water
In this tumultuous ocean,
Both been tossed
Headlong into tumbling waves,
And I tried to
Throw you my life vest,
But you floated by
On something else,
And here am I,
Drowning in disbelief.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 9:25 PM UTC
Around the pool of chandelier light the movers and shakers gathered
in tight knots, unwilling to untangle from the policy books
intent on pushing fences further out into the Caspian Sea
across the Black Sea and encircling the whole Artic Circle
from latitude whatever to wherever.
The chief fence maker arrived with a pair of pliers
and rolls of barbed wire twenty thousand posts
and a battalion of unnamed soldiers all hiding
behind masks of make-up
" Now listen, people, roll out that spikey wire starting from here
to eternity and keep going around the globe until you return
five hundred years to meet the beginning with the end!"
A few bald heads bowed but wary of cross-hairs
hiding along the ceiling behind sharpshooting
shapeshifters.
They knew instinctively, that unbowed head may be bowled
over and transported to Siberia in a meat wagon
for permanent freezing with the mastodons.
"Go Now, do not turn back, ever, or you will become
a pillar of salt."
The band played The Last Post
as the last post rolled out.
Peace began as soon as the war ended
and the fences were built around the entire
Northern Hemisphere.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
Just lay here next to me
Holding my hand.
I don't care about the kiss or the ***
They're just bonuses
In the package that is you.
Your arm wrapped around me
Holding me tight;
The best feeling in the world.
Whisper your honey dipped words
As we lay here through the night.
The gentle feel of your lips against mine
Add to the magic that is you.
Don't leave without saying goodbye;
The warmth of you hug
Will keep me safe while your gone.
The spikey feel as my hands rub your head
Drawing little shapes on your back.
A days worth of stubble
Tickles my face
As we lay cheek to cheek.
Don't say farewell,
Don't turn off the light,
Not until we've had our goodnight kiss.
Make sure smiles consume our faces,
Otherwise, it wasn't time well spent.
Goodnight, my darling, goodnight.
Sleep well till morning's light.
Until we see each other once more,
Take care and sweet dreams.
Tomorrow's almost here.
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 12:20 AM UTC
Splitting shapes with no hesitation
viciousness slid into silence
I hardly talked for a year.
Silence stood up and looked death in the eyes. Only eternity stared back.
Splitting shapes at night
oak trunks stretched like gymnast legs, her sharp branches clawing a sky necklace of diamonds for Selena to wear.
Forked between love and hate
I felt both of you climb me leaving a plethora of scars to return awards and punishment.
Sharper shapes to split
my solitary seige keeping battalions at bay.
Softly savaged.
Savaged softly in strict walls with no windows.
How did it feel to watch laughter get crushed inside?
I heard the pick axe sweat, arms littered in grey dust, a hole in the wall finally appears small enough for hope to crawl through.
Sharper shapes to split
I left her memory chipped and splintered, my blood dripped
thorns from yesterday.
A rope appeared at the end of her silence.
Gallows awaited, mocking crowds gathered, threw stones, I heard their rough laughter corner me at every angle.
I escaped. Burnt. Sunk. A devilish blade turned through my temples.
Red hot silver left its carving in my psyche.
I lived four years in grey ghost mode bitten in the beast dust of her smiling memory.
How I came out of it nobody knows.
Sharper shapes to split I looked into rooms with no outlets, I heard a voice build up and flood them all.
I walked blindly through streets,
my eyes spray painted every wall with punk graffiti, a restless rebellion full of thrashing lyrics standing up to empty words spitout from heartless machines.
I fell asleep in spikey fields. Yellow weeds grew tall on desolation row.
Sharper shapes to split
a detective pulling his hair out
trying to find out Jack The Rippers true identity.
I faded out. I decided to make sky collages on my camera phone.
Talk to nobody.
Every shade of blue taking in sharper shapes I split apart with
calm vicious silence.
This devilish blade inside nearly took my life.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 9:45 PM UTC
Hills spotted in scars,
Are mountains all the same
And a sandy ditch
For lovers to pitch
Their thoughts and play their games
Prickly ladies rise above their spikey babies
Glass bulbs lining lanes
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 3:10 PM UTC
What gives you the right?
Why an ist or phobic?
Look at your self, what do you see?
Just stay away from me and don't even look at me
Black in my mind as I look at you.
Poison. Spikey. Vile
Stay away, far away.
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 2:27 PM UTC
NEVER TO BE TOLD
Oh joy!
Not one two
gentlemen magpies
conversing on
my crazy paving.
Two Fred Astaires in tails
awaiting their Ginger Rogers'
or merely waiters
enquiring
"Would Sir like to savour
the moment?"
Their white so....white.
Their black so...black
yet not-so...black.
Their viridian sheen
treasure for the eyes.
I teach my little girl
to rhyme them.
One for. . .
Two for. . .
as another
joins them.
"3 for a girl!""
I tell her.
"That's you!"
"That's me?"
All day she
chants and plays:
"I'm a magpie I'm
a magpie!"
Years later
when she has grown
far far
beyond this moment
( transformed into
a Punk Goth Princess )
she asks me why
I used to call her my magpie.
"Ah..." I say
kissing her spikey hair.
"Secret. . .
. . .never to be told."
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 4:56 PM UTC
Why should I try to lie about you and that guy.
It's shameful and awful that you have betrayed me for a while.
Time and again, you prime to frail my fragile brain.
You've tossed me without any cost, to be lost to another host.
In this bizarre looting world of wraths and stinky breaths.
You left me plotting and dealing my own scornful feelings.
Now that it's all over between you and him. You trying to intervene like a jhin.
Sometimes I feel you are a fish with spikey fins and hooded pins.
Do you do this for your internal wins? Or are you playing the game of sins...
©sim
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 9:09 PM UTC
There isn’t this this place where people go and burn after death. There is no creature with horns and spikey tail called devil waiting for bad people entering the gates to his empire. Hell is not the definition of a sphere where cruel things happen. Hell is a completely personal state of mind where your biggest fears become reality and things you were always scared of actually happen. The devil sleeps inside each of us, waiting for his opportunity to strike when our nightmares crawling their way in our lives.
Dec 12, 2019
Dec 12, 2019 at 8:43 AM UTC
I’m so hungry and nothing tastes good
I’m so hungry and nothing tastes good
I eat a loaf of pavement with a pinch of gravel
I eat a pencil case like a baguette and shake the carvings into my mouth when the meaty stuff’s all gone
I like Double Decker wrappers most of all
Frighteningly chewy but any toilet worth its bath salt will tell you hydrochloric stomach acid will not unchewifiy its texture no matter how much it tries.
And it tries very hard.
I’m so hungry and I cannot sleep
I’m so hungry and I cannot sleep
Something about the hunger makes me want to ********** in the toilet
Perhaps by a window or leaning back against my unlocked bedroom door
Some sharp spikey pleasure to relieve the pain
It is not a sharp pain, nor a spikey one
It is a soft, malleable, liquid-y pain
What pains me about this pain is how it perseveres.
And it perseveres for quite a while.
I’m so hungry and i try too hard
I’m so hungry and i try too hard
Art is my food.
Art fills up my belly before i fall asleep
Art gets chewed and broken down like amino acids before running through my veins
When I exercise, go to my lectures, talk to my friends, it is the fruity juice of art that fuels my ligaments as they contract.
As long as this stupid ******* short film gets made
I will never have to eat anything proper ever again
I’m so hungry and it tastes so good
I’m so hungry and it tastes so good
Feb 2, 2022
Feb 2, 2022 at 6:19 AM UTC
is it white
is it red
does it sleep in bed
is it blue
is it pink
can you tell it what to think
is it round
is it elliptical
is it slightly sceptical
is it political, satirical, natural or factual
could it be conceptual or is it actually actual
is it purple
is it green
and can it be seen
is it indigo
is it black
so when’s it coming back
is it smooth
is it spikey
the latter, more than likely
is it angry
is it sad
and is it really bad
is it brown
is it beige
what’s its real age
is it grey
is it yellow
do we think it’s gonna mellow
or is it just orange?
Oct 24, 2017
Oct 24, 2017 at 3:37 PM UTC
The devil danced,
prances, far lances,
spikey lies and slited eyes,
whispered in all the ears,
that didn't know they shouldn't hear;
"You shall die,
it's not alright,
the dark will cause to much fright,
you will never see the light."
They said;
"I will come again,
it will be alright,
I shall face the fright,
I am the light,
I'll make the lanterns,
Pass em down,
So others wont fear,
Because there are other things I hear."
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 5:11 PM UTC