"taxidermist" poems
I live in a world
Where we pet deer with cars
So we set our emotions in jars
The cops drive with broken headlights
And nobody knows what's right
Yet we're not allowed to fuss
Because we're on a prison bus
So I dream of the days
I'll get to see the freeway
You got in my car
That didn't go far
You decided to call a taxi
Because I was so taxing
I got under your skin like a cyst
And I became your taxidermist
You jumped in my town car
That became a clown car
You made me feel like a star
And then left me on Mars
Where I lived out the back of my hearse
Patiently waiting for a compatible nurse
I found myself in an ambulance
Withdrawing from all your medicine
I couldn't get out of the trance
Your bulldozer left me embedded in
After being rolled in the muck
I became a monster truck
I wish you were a convertible
So I could at least get a nibble
For you handle a road of ugliness with grace
It's the same daunting road I cowardly face
We just can't travel together
That's how we'll travel forever
I just wish you could know
The places my car will go
Oct 21, 2017
Oct 21, 2017 at 5:03 AM UTC
Grandpa melted two squirrels together using the fat from their bodies after skinning the skin from their bellies. They were dead before he began this project, of course. He's a taxidermist.
Grandpa is surely to blame for many a nightmare–
The jars of eyes and teeth collected from years of scraping corpses off the highway.
But as the Buddhists preach, I've found some blessings in his macabre pastime.
Most of my friends shy away from the undesirable aspects of life;
Death bringing up the forefront.
I feel that grandpa's melancholy menagerie has helped me
Cozy up to the idea that despite life's bountiful beauty,
A dark side coexists intertwined-
But darkness is not always
A bad thing...
Is it?
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 7:22 PM UTC
A plastic bag is snagged in the branches where I can't reach to stop its crackled song. The bag is an organ—its kidney? Stomach? Heart?—of the thing that's dying. The thing's given pills and powders, and graveyards are robbed to replace its parts. When it dies, it'll be brought to the taxidermist to be stuffed, and its stiffened corpse will be strung in lights—a beacon for people to arrive, two-by-two, and scoop out the void from behind its glass eyes. And when the void has been doled around, the dead will shuck, jive, and shuffle step to plastic song.
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 4:56 PM UTC
Taxidermist!
You haven't earned this
You haven't earned the right to decide
whether my burial should be feral
Or not at all
Instead stand tall
Stuffed with white cotton wool
On the plaque it says your name
Not mine or my family's
I should have been buried beneath the trees
With the earth and the dirt
So new life could germinate out of my death's birth
But instead look at me now
I'm just a coin in your pocket
A note in your wallet
And for those who want it
A source of passing fancy
That is if they ever do get bored of the TV
But hopefully,
If they do see me
They question the perversity of it all
And wonder...
Who spends their time stuffing cotton wool into dead animals?
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 7:37 AM UTC
I've been rightly doing taxidermy
More years than I care to count
Is it any wonder that I got bored
Stuffing Raccoon, Deer, and Antelope by the pound
So I went and changed around my tactics
And believe me things have been going swell
Since it's no longer only animals that I stuff
But people just as well
I went and opened up a funeral parlor
So the two I've now combined
Where I offer up the best of both
For one low extraordinary price
People are dying to get my services (Pardon the Pun)
From many miles around
They love the idea of being stuffed
Before they're plopped into the ground
Why some are even being stuffed
With their best friend sewed forever in their arms
To spend eternity with Buffy the Poodle
To me, holds at bit of charm
What ever position you want planted in
I am more than willing to please
Moon your friends a lasting goodbye
Is the special of the week
For those not sure where they're going
I'm an expert in stuffing the face
With a look of total surprise and confusion
In case they end up in the wrong place
How you wish to give your final farewells
We're not here to question why
But only to offer the One, Two, or Five Finger Special
In how you'd like to wave goodbye
So hurry and make those reservations
At Billy Bobs Taxidermy & Mortuarium
Cause we're stuffing it hard and heavy these days
Where it is we got it all going on
May 4, 2013
May 4, 2013 at 6:44 PM UTC
mornings ice
feels fresh
from nights grubby paws
walking through a place
where i don't feel lost
leaves sowed on humble branches
brushes through my hair
apples float
in the simplest form
we take our breaks
from the depth of others eyes
as they stare with pandemic ideas
so frightening
makes the ground swallow you past your knees
second breath you take
a sticky melody
collection of black-lights
guides a taxidermist towards your heart
only can you
write yourself out
with occult-ed stories
about space and time
but still its all hieroglyphics
to that diamond cut monster
his malice screams
make your ears reach for fairest of volumes
crawling for that exit
the one you painted as a child
scenery of leaves
and apple trees
you shut your eyes
and all has stopped
your nerves start to float
your mind cradles sanity
but still that voice lingers
the voice of complexity
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC
too safely tucked under
too neatly folded skin,
as if it will never be worn again.
grow out of it,
it was said.
i might
i can
would i?
these embroidered butterflies on the white blouse
wings-
fluttering, putrid
thoughts
like a runaway train
no destination, and no hint of stopping
afraid that i'd spit out words i was
afraid to say
a spaghetti-strapped tank top
with nothing left under my sleeves
and calls were answered
and among echoes i lay
and try to recall who i was the day before
bold prints, too bold
you know what they say,
a leopard never changes its spots.
true, i wished.
and if i could catch these fleeting moments,
i would
and i would tell you
that it was real
in nothing i felt most comfortable
and nothing i felt
no one will stay
not even i.
drew maps to places i would bring no one to
and out of the sins committed
i wished someone plundered
these mounted trophies
i'd created and soon destroy
the belief that these goodnight kisses i find in the morning
were planted by the taxidermist
some days, i don't do my laundry.
i know it's simple, one two three.
instead, eight nine ten steps,
pick up this little black dress.
it's uncomfortable, but it's not.
let me please my demons once more.
after all,
they are the only ones i could speak to
after every one has went to bed.
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 9:38 AM UTC
The hunter’s bullet lodges in my side
like the pin bones of salmon wedged
in the back of my throat.
My life balances on the border
between my favorite comfort foods,
and the blade of the taxidermist.
You would make me into a trophy,
gutted and cured to become an ornament,
in your seasonal hunting cabin.
Raw honeycomb, Caribou marrow,
salmon roe stuck to my tongue,
psalms of my home made flesh,
call me back into my survival
instincts for my sleeping children.
She who outruns deer & devours
strong bucks with antlers the size of sequoias
could not outrun the champion sprinter,
American made bullets.
But when you realize your rumpus
disturbed wild things, there is no time to reload.
You brought a potluck into the den
of a slumbering mother with cubs.
My teeth are agonizingly real
And my jaws are in your belly,
rooting for the lost rib of Adam.
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 1:01 PM UTC
You carry me down the hill with the moon
nestled deep within your pockets.
Your warmth resounds deep into my hollow
aura, smoldering in a sweet smoke.
You inject your daily embalming love deep
under my skin, the rivers running white.
You tuck my chin under the railroad tracks
with the careful delicacy of a skilled taxidermist.
There was nothing romantic in the way I faded
to amber, nor in the way your hands
folded into crescents and pulled down a
tiered curtain of blackness, speckled with
the eyes of your descendants.
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 7:17 PM UTC
Every poet is a fake
eyewitness, peddler of make-believe hearsay,
A conveyor of love he never knew
in a city he never saw in a way to make you
feel the passion as if it were true,
He is an air-brusher of reality,
Thus a proselytizer of the Absurd:
That you can paint pictures with words;
That you can travel by verbs;
That you can conjure nouns by saying them;
That you can lead several lives within your only one.
Every poet is a fake
taxidermist, seller of second-hand stuffings
of souls that were never alive
Every poet is a fake
imperialist, would be explorer-cum-colonizer
of the terra incognita of your mind
Every poet is a fake
poet
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 11:03 AM UTC
The fire burned in the hearth upon a summer's day, in the land of blazing abnormality.
The wire haired dog laid silently in his basket, without reaction.
Two other friendly dogs attended, but still he laid.
A silent half giraffe was stroked, he or she, was also still.
Herring gull swung in a cage, motionless and the peacock perched in reticence, as he was strutted on the cabinet no more.
Half a seal poked its head out from the wall, while the antelope looked on.
And still they sat and chatted, not an eyelid was batted, as they sat and supped their ale, while the air took on the stale scent of musty beings.
The atmosphere in the place was tranquil.
Death, so obvious within this amazing place
Ghastliness of death, was somehow so respectful.
As they gainfully employed the taxidermist, who did a magic job!
(c) Livvi
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 9:24 AM UTC
****** words paint the flowers a crimson red.
A dove recites the end of all mankind.
Rounding out his edges and sharpening his knives.
Amorous lovers ride the wave of life.
Heart worms my body still tries to burn away.
Kindly, I delude god and myself into a dream.
Every mindless prayer, my secrets scream.
And only my love remains.
To this day, he accepts the woman he lost.
Opals eyes that cry remorse.
No reply.
I can live without the friends I knew.
And each and every missing piece.
Morose taxidermist lives her dreams.
Sullen chords play the lonely song.
And I tell myself that I am strong.
Do the roses in your garden look pretty?
Dec 10, 2020
Dec 10, 2020 at 12:50 PM UTC
Stuffed bird turns
& turns again
while the snapple man
snaps & cracks a cackle
& the slow doll dances
a waltz with the
taxidermist's daughter.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
Classic trepidation, stationary with the aura of
Coincidence, slit myself and call it skyward thinking
Sinking feelings that argue for a sudden resignation
Conscientiousness, leprous and typesetting
Intimate knowledge that I disclose verbatim cannot, and should not, ever be used against me.
Interest infected through wavelengths, non responsive partly cause of the rupturing that's been running through my dreams.
Scant as fixes to the problems, overblown and oft forgotten, lisping when I speak of this Epiphany.
Taxidermist furnish houses, howling wolves that get devoured, sounds like God and hell and them finally worked out peace.
Just cosmetic, slightly pathetic the ease at which the mind elapses
Classics retconned till nothing's left except the years of influence
Invested in the melancholy, snobs lobbyist and in distant memories
Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 9:44 AM UTC
To my imagined love
Forget the giraffe ride,
Our desert trek
On a magic carpet ride.
Life spoke.
Reality listened, for once.
And the taxidermist stopped the game.
For what was once painfully alive is now stuffed.
It hurts.
To have seen the tears in the giraffe's eyes,
His mirrored innocence
Forever immortalized in my memory.
Undoubtedly,
Now sitting in someone else's collection.
And to have imagined the howls of the Serengeti
Me wrestling with the lions,
Valor shining,
Saving you from the lions,
All in the sunset of your hair blowing in the wind,
Wild fires, too
Flames abound, erecting.
Yet
All this fairy tale,
Angel dust seeding from where
Who knows?
Maybe from catching the look in your eyes, once.
But the tears of the giraffe,
His innocence
Mirrored
Was for forever real, my love.
Bye, my imagined love.
Logan Robertson
9/13/17
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 2:26 PM UTC
Eye spine a different nine, stolen time
Tombstones compliment our skyline
A coffin slipping itself into its grave
Shallow dirt under the cement
Did she find what she was looking for?
A shadow slips behind the stage
Vacant household in a silent silhouette
Masterpiece purchased for its frame
A Head mounted on a wooden plaque
Taxidermist trophy husband - prideful
Mistaken muse entropic groping
"I want you inside me "
Vored perception of a lustful vivisection - a pause
My keys- the door
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 3:17 AM UTC
this skin can barely hold a tender paradox
a first touch, a lost goodbye
like a taxidermist of time
your fingers drum on the tabletop
the coffe's steam rises like a ghost
the city blends its glass hours, the melting clocks
the hourly sigh of a smile, all that glitters turns into tear
I have to watch out for that precise instant
when time fractures when our eyes meet
Sep 25, 2025
Sep 25, 2025 at 4:18 PM UTC
i mount my heart on a wall,
still and discolored
where my taxidermist hands had pressed.
it breathes life into dead walls:
a hanging irony made of
soft cyclamens
and the closed, white fist of a tormented girl.
i mount my teeth on a wooden wall,
write my letters,
pour salt on spaces where i used to stand;
may i not stand here
once again.
i mount my hands on a wooden wall;
they do not knock. i do not answer.
silent as a lamb — down to a pit,
i watch the sheer cliff of my back
from where i have jumped
and the sundry sorrows shrink
into black, blinking dots
like a hidden villain
exposed.
i fall over myself
like in a slow-moving dream —
lead-like it flows like the acheron river.
and here comes the ferryman.
Nov 30, 2021
Nov 30, 2021 at 12:06 AM UTC
There walking the length of a promenade,
from one end to the other and back again,
or labouring in vain in some little way,
in plot of earth or garret shot right through with light,
throwing dust sheets over all the old furniture,
in that old country house somewhere far off,
and finding the labour light for the season that’s in it.
Or dwelling in folly on another thought,
giving over to the human brain to the taxidermist,
master and subject to the other organs.
So found upon a hill in a lonely place,
above all the lands of the earth
surveying the wasted days of yore,
and waving goodbye to the sun.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 5:06 PM UTC
you drink cocktails on wednesday mornings
to feel the rush past your tastebuds
telling your brain
_this is good- this makes me happy- give me more_
i gave you my all till i had nothing left to give
now you kept my heart
got it stuffed and propped up on your desk
right next to the post it’s and the stapler you stole
propped up like a proud taxidermist
showing off the new addition to the collection
the rare one- it put up a good fight but _you_
you conquered
in the end.
proud trophy hunter
_you_
are the animal.
Apr 4, 2019
Apr 4, 2019 at 5:49 PM UTC
Every poet a
taxidermist, preserving
their beings with words.
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 5:16 AM UTC
The room stayed locked for nigh on thirty years
But I could hear the bubbling inside
A smell like meat rotting
Wafted along the hall
I would listen as he tip-toed
Along the floorboards to the door
Then it would creak open
And I see him dressed the next morning
Clean shaven and wearing his suit
With not a crease insight
Like the room didn't even exist
Of course we knew it did though
I asked Mother one cold winters morning
What does daddy do in that room
And she told me it was a secret room
Little boys weren't to know
Now thirty years on he's past
And finally I have a key
I slowly unlock the door and take a breath
Inside are animals of all different sizes
Stuffed and looking grand
Father was a taxidermist
Nothing unnatural all along
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 8:16 PM UTC
it is a tableau. oh!
made of moles. he
is a taxidermist
his partner works the pound shop
i hear.
all are around a manger
we have moley the ****** with molef,
angel moliel, the black winged one, little
baby molus
asleep in some hay
we three moles, best thing ever
moleperds watching stuff at night
on e bay or view it in the shop
they call it a nativity. molivity.
oh!
tableau
. moles .
(so my timeline is now advertising moles…..hahaha)
Feb 2, 2018
Feb 2, 2018 at 1:31 AM UTC