"termite" poems
Law,
All ye termites hacking ants are you without sin?
Twisting the law to your greed thus dethroning justice
Thou that dis-virgins the law to suit your selfish taste,
Did not equity say that none is above the law?
Money-thirsty vultures seeking positions to occupy.
Law hackers depriving justice and equity of her rights
Equity and justice now lives in shame of her virginity,
Almighty termite, do not your deeds speak evil of your sins?
I weep blood for justice and equity whose daughters you *****
Is there none whose conscience still breathe or lives?
Power-driven termites making uncountable promises
Yet accomplishing none but your calculated interests.
Equity,
All ye leaders that preach peace, are you not corrupt minded?
En-slaving accounts meant for public welfare
Yet you claim to have the peoples interest in mind,
Did not the law command you to let equity and justice smile?
Parasitic predators hi-jacking the country's economy
Filthy termites proclaiming injustice upon powerless ants,
Justice hackers, do not your conscience judge your judgments?
I wish that you allow justice and equity have her way.
Law benders at whose feet equity and justice bow
Rippers of the law, at your hands justice is twisted,
Is your nature as humans so inhumane?
Little wonder the earth lives in fear of your tyranny.
Justice,
All ye slanders of the law, why not sheath your swords of corruption?
Your unchecked power has broken the wings of justice
Thereby making equity a widow without a husband,
Remember your oaths to serve with justice and equity;
Did you deceive the ants that voted you in to serve them?
Chameleons occupying seats of filtered ambitions
Woe betide your conscience for refusing to judge you,
Are you not guilty of molesting the law?
I mourn for the shameful death of equity and justice.
You that crafts the law to fit your suit of corruption
Remember a day comes when justice will laugh again,
And you being powerful cannot escape the law of Karma.
Karma,
Murderers of the law, will you also bribe karma?
I doubt if you can buy the law of karma with money.
Thou whose gluttony corrupts justice and equity,
Don't you feel guilty that you disvirgined the law?
Equity and justice now roams about in nakedness,
You that preach the law, are you true to yourself?
Heartless spiders cob-webbing the law to entangle poor ants
Did not equity bid you come to justice with clean hands?
Yet with filthy garments you condemn innocent ants;
Mind you that someday the law will rise again.
All ye scavengers of justice and hackers of the law,
Do you think you can **** the law of Karma?
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 10:22 AM UTC
here comes the fishhead singing
here comes the baked potato in drag
here comes nothing to do all day long
here comes another night of no sleep
here comes the phone wringing the wrong tone
here comes a termite with a banjo
here comes a flagpole with blank eyes
here comes a a cat and a dog wearing nylons
here comes a machine gun saying
here comes bacon burning in the pan
here comes a voice saying something dull
here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds
with flat brown beaks
here comes a **** carrying a torch
a grenade
a deathly love
here comes a victory carrying
one bucket of blood
and stumbling over the berry bush
and the sheets hang out the windows
and the bombers head east west north south
get lost
get tossed like salad
as all the fish in the sea line up and form
one line
one long line
one very long thin line
the longest line you could ever imagine
and we get lost
walking past purple mountains
we walk lost
bare at last like the knife
having given
having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed
as the girl at the call service
screams over the phone:
"don't call back! you sound like a ****
5k
the hundred year old stairs
wakes up from its dreamless slumber
to find the world has spun
for an infinity too long
it once roamed
and ruled
the household of Chathanathodi
making way to the rooms
upstairs
that conspired a thousand
whispered secrets
simultaneously
sprawling its termite-infested legs
to make way
downstairs
that injected an aura of
omnipotence
its laddery body was now a little chipped
and its creaky joints, a little shaky
but it didn't matter
as it was still conspicuous
and strong
like Hercules
leading unsuspecting mortals
upstairs and downstairs
to its universe of Gods
Shalini Nayar
© 2001
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 9:46 AM UTC
The 7 wonders of the world
Is quite a sight to see
But it don't compare to what we have
In the hills of Tennessee
Uncle Zebs cow is a big ole thing
Quite a sight to behold
That cow's so big that when they milk her
Her udders even have to unfold
Cousin Zeke has a six-legged mule
And man that thing is fast
One time he raced a bobcat
And the bobcat finished last
My granny's teeth are made of wood
Of course, they were bought from a store
But ever since that termite season
She don't use them much no more
Aunt Imojean has a twine collection
That she started when she was three
I guess if we unwound that thing
It'd reach clear 'cross Tennessee
Cousin Jake has a rattlesnake
He pickled and stuffed in a jar
He caught that thing a year ago
Trying to run off with his car
Uncle Randolph has this chicken
Who howls and barks at the moon
That poor chicken is so dadgum old
That she has to be fed with a spoon
Uncle Sam has the seventh wonder
An invisible moonshine still
We ain't seen it since he made it
But it's somewhere on that hill
So, after you think you've seen it all
You haven't seen anything yet
Come to the hills of Tennessee
And see things you'll never forget
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 9:07 PM UTC
American city, your roads make me gasp,
Hold my breath with cancerous anxiety.
Your sidewalks,
Ancient ruins of time passed: A failed optimism for Utopian desire:
A house, a yard, a car for every person.
Now derelict, termite infested, but rented.
Chlorinated chemical water runs through rusted, moldy spickets to
Rinse pesticide seasoned vegetables.
And yet they remain so tasteless.
But who cares?
Suburban middle class zombies?
Created with media placed propaganda.
Born and inoculated with DisneypepsiMccocacola ideologies.
Oh Wal-Mart,
how we love your homogenized Chinese products.
Oh America,
how we love your multi-million dollar cathartic films,
They bring my mind to no place and inspire nothing.
Your theme park inspired retail caters to any identity I desire:
I am a professional,
My wallet lined with the best credit cards,
SUV, Hummer, Super boat, designer label, mall bought,
bleached teeth smile, with slick greasy hair style.
I'm cool, I pay for the gas.
Beep your horn, and rev your engine.
We are at war with each other.
Everyone get out of my way: road rage lifestyle: compete or die.
Big screen television dream.
Bought it at Target.
Open my cupboard: Macaroni and Cheese, delicious.
Ambian, Prozac, antibiotic, Listerine.
Collagen bovine beauty:
Manicure, pedicure, dye and wax
Acrylic nails, hair extensions
And silicone sacs.
Oh, American city
How we want to steal your money and **** your blood.
Chop your trees and cement your grass.
American city you are dead.
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 6:22 AM UTC
Brown yellow rusted pages
None read
None would for ages
Lying on the pave
Blurred is the title and name
Lost dream and never born fame
Wisdom of long bearded sages
Dumped in the grave
Dusty old forgotten write
Feasted upon by termite
What to author full of sense
Fetch not any pence
Should I buy take home to read
Not treat it like just **** ****
Spend some time in smelling old
See if bring some gains?
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 11:41 AM UTC
I'm a little funny looking
I must confess,
all chunky boxy & truck-like
with 2 big old horns
that look quite deadly
but really we just
use them for show mostly,
oh & digging around
in termite hills,
I do hear though
that you humans
really cherish them
for folk cures &
help with your
***** & such,
you know
important
scientific stuff,
but then again
we can make a fearsome
fearsome charge
at a land-rover
full of folks
all with their
cameras & such,
at least we used to
till we became
fucken extinct!
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 11:16 AM UTC
There was a girl named Peg Leg Peg,
Called her that because of her wooden leg,
She was known as the best in town,
Guys would come from miles around,
You see, Peg’s leg could detach,
For better access to her ******
And though it wasn’t ***** that bite,
There was the occasional termite,
But this did not seem to deter,
All the guys who called on her,
And though there were occasional cracks,
About how she held her stockings up with tacks,
All the guys would practically beg,
To put another notch in Peggy’s leg.
04-19-10.
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 7:32 PM UTC
It was a highway that brought me here
Stuffed into a expensive car with four adults and good music
We drove for what seemed hours
Arriving on the slick, black streets of the Emerald City
Down a rabbit hole of old cars and termite ridden stairs
Past an old couch and a stray cat
Into a cold room with heaters stacked and jumbled
Full of pianos and good and beer
People I've known for twelve years
And people I've met only once
People I don't know
Different skins, of their own, of animals
Frizzy and cropped hair, wine and mason jar glasses
Walls painted silver, gleaming under forty year old lamps
Mismatched furniture and occupants alike
Sirens singing in the background
Children running through the foreground
Old friends and a blind man with a big dog
Visual artists and IRS agents
Musicians and carpenters
Mechanical engineers
Cobbled together around and old fireplace and a rosewood piano
Sharing stories and songs, sons and daughters
Tales from the road, and wedding pictures
I sat on an orange pleather couch in the makeshift kitchen
Watching theses people's children play with bionicles and dolls
Reading books and drawing on walls
Playing drums and answering calls
Fighting for bathroom stall
These are my people
I know them all
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 1:43 AM UTC
I respect my body.
The same way I respect my house.
My red brick skin
Blushed with flowing blood
From my space-heater heart
My air-conditioner lungs I have routinely maintained
With long drawn out breathes of cool wind
I have protected my house with toxic pockets
Of termite poison
To protect my wooden frame
And I hang up pictures of love ones with
Nails inside tattoo guns that spell out their names
And I paint my home’s walls with different shades
Of colors to bring out its ascetic value
Like how I use blue eye-shadow so my guests
Can better see my eyes, bright blue
I eat vitamins like I vacuum my carpet
Cleaning up and persevering its worth
The ting-tang sound of a working vacuum
Paralleling the pitter-patter of those circular pills
As they fall down my throat
I seasonally change out my couches and my chairs
When I go to my mirror and tie-up my hair
A different look for a different season
Because my house deserves a separate look too
For when it feels the wind changing
And like myself my house would rather not be bare
So I dress it in marigolds and poppy flowers
And ivy that I have to cut down when I notice it growing too fast
Because like my house I am too beautiful to be covered completely
Each shrub I trim another inch of skin I can share
And I respect it when I get home
I say just a little bit
More skin at the top
To show off my brick house.
May 23, 2012
May 23, 2012 at 1:27 PM UTC
Termites, those invisible, destroyers
eating away, eating away
bit by bit, I can hear
slow and steady
gnawing away
so determined to hurt me
destroy the bit I have, only
this time its not wood
its flesh and soul
they eat away
bent on finishing me
my whole being.
Have you seen these termites:
that eat the inner being?
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 11:22 PM UTC
Little ant, so small and insignificant
Yet in numbers up an elephant’s snout
How easily you make him indisposed
Lesson to learn: strength in numbers
Maxim to remember: unity of purpose
Oh termite, thou destroyer of civilizations!
How mighty when surreptitiously you creep in
Such ingenious civil engineering feats everywhere
Orderly highways with neither jams nor congestion
And tall imposing castles kissing the air proudly
Result: new architectures plagiarizing your prototype!
And you wasp of constricted waist and mean toxin
You make no attempt to hide or disguise your dwelling
Yours is a house built upon a hill for all to see and tremble
They say when a man has no obvious protection keep away
Lest you trigger subtle forces that mesmerize and pulverize you
Lesson from this: commandos are modern day human wasps
Everybody owes the bee everything, from sweetness to health
The bees a-buzzing speak of persistence and how it breaks barriers
In the end you listen because the message is ceaseless and urgent
And oh sweet bee of the hot sting shot from your posterior
No cordon bleu chef anywhere can ever approximate your finesse
Your formula and patent are hedged with natural mystery
Lesson to learn: the bitter and the sweet in judicious mixture!
Now little man recently so puffed-up and conceited and ever so inadequate
Hear ye this and know it well lest you stumble and fall into dark precipices
You’re nothing and you’ve created nothing; there’s a prototype of everything
In nature’s wonder store of huge surprises and unassuming wisdom
Lesson from all this: one day the other world will rise up and assert it itself
So steer your course differently and beware of those who bide their time
Grim in their purpose and determined in their unshakable resolve
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 4:00 AM UTC
Day debt
night wept
sleep crept
Attachment.
Where is my attachment?
evening out of balance
The line of my life has broken
off into separate identities
Flower feather
Hollow weather
Moonlight Canyon
Skylight childhood nostalgia
Stolen star
Battered cheekbones
Of weary workers keeping to
The hornet's nest
Reality a constant terror
Of city structures swallowing
them whole.
Blackbird rests
on an Autumn branch of
hidden meadow
checking its wristwatch obsessively for the
Hydrogen Volcano
INEVITABLE.
Termite Corporations
Cavernous Hilltops
All that green is gold
(A straw man in Byzantine robes approaches
the frosty Manhattan
to become a relic in it's Libraries)
People fall in Love with coincidence,
(The illusion of order beyond our field or reach)
All that love is kept in a
Conservatory somewhere...
Glossy stems connected to palpitating blossoms.
Our tired eyes are focused to the asphalt confluence
whether fever or handhold.
Hymns ring throughout the forests of
Vancouver Island
Dreamers hang from the Niagara Trestle caught in
overwhelming sunlight
Doused in spirit.
Holy Melancholic September
Sweeps away the dusty Summer,
everything seems renewed
In the rain..
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 8:29 AM UTC
I am building a brace for the front porch
of my brother who is on the other side
of that door listening with headphones
to a recording of Chinese poetry
(in Mandarin, which he understands)
while he is dying, slowly,
brain cell by brilliant brain cell
in that rocking chair
whose joints are creaking,
coming undone.
He no longer remembers his phone number
or how to count change at the grocery store.
He is in denial of any problem
as he grows younger, ever younger
shedding years like snakeskins
while the crack in the porch grows wider, ever wider
so out here in the rain
I set four-by-fours upright as posts,
then I **** four-by-eights as beams
lifting on my shoulder
held by my hands
pushing with my legs
transferred through my spine
anchored by my feet
as the useless joists of the deck
drop termite **** onto my eyebrows
like taunts of children:
nya nya you can’t fix this.
But I can brace it for a while.
Long enough, at least
for my brother to forget ten languages.
I will repair that rocking chair.
I will buy diapers, rubber sheets,
install grab bars in the shower.
I won’t let his porch collapse
out here in the rain.
I will cradle these boards
like a baby in my arms.
Nov 27, 2016
Nov 27, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC
"Fuuuuuck!" groaned the Tortoise.
**** spat the Hare.
"Son of a ***** barked the Fox.
**** on a rooster!" cawed the Crow.
***** of a bison!" growled the Wolf.
***** of a llama!" brayed the ***
**** on a termite!" squealed the Ant.
**** of a cricket!" grated the Grasshopper.
"THE HUMANS KNOW OUR STORIES!!"
cried the animals in unison despair.
"Yeeeees," hoot'd the Owl
with an evil-wicked grin,
"but only the ones with a moral."
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 8:04 AM UTC
May morning cacophonies never quiet.
Doves coos, repetitive sharp whistles
rising and falling sounded by robins,
who seem to say, "cheer up, cheer up,
cheerily, cheer up." Jays shrieking
whatever warnings they shriek. Chirps,
tweets, titterings of so many more, combine
in crazy compilations of some
orchestra without their conductor
forever warming up days. I do not own
feathers but all my body hairs do stand
on end, flitting as if they were. Then,
woodpecker taps against hollow
termite ridden tree sounding like
the strike of a conductor's baton.
Nothing comes together. A symphony
never starts, at least not one of any
great composer's. Just the greatest.
I spring from my nest. I do not know music.
I hear it and am it. These mornings move
me to ditter about, find my way,
peck my morning niblings, feel dawn
dress me in sun, make me lust
life adorned with feathers. How
possibility wings bring.
From flock to flock, I dare to fit in.
Learn new mating dances.
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 12:30 PM UTC
Indigo is the gaunt damp face of the still-born messiah.
With crude-oil cappillary flush like mottled blush
On Treblinka cheek bones.
On cold steel autopsy table, It's topsy turvy shrine,
A halogen lamp halo hums and sways
Over It's holy rolling head.
Unsavory savior, the pundit spared It's pageant.
With blackhole pupils pierced and seeping
Vitreol fluid like the weeping Virgin's tears,
Carving termite trails in their wake.
It trembles, gasps, and quakes
With the knowledge of futility.
All that was and all that will
Successively unsuccessfully.
A parade of steel tables on blood spattered conveyer belt,
Pulled to the symphony of six billion bellowed pleas for salvation,
Through tattered curtains to uncertainty.
Mar 16, 2010
Mar 16, 2010 at 4:09 PM UTC
.
Looking on
this expanse that encircles me,
closing in during open hours,
unlocking doors I can’t seem to walk through
Stairways of rotted, termite eaten steps
each with my name painted on them,
creaking underfoot,
losing to the weight of
long lines at self serve counters
wrapping around as if
nothing is free but here
for some reason it is
And I stand right in the middle
alone in this ocean of faces,
polo shirts and penny loafers
staring at cell phone screens,
calling someone,
talking with their hands,
hands free?
Paying it forward,
coffee for the next guy in line,
but not me
For I am just here, anywhere,
somewhere like this,
a thing plopped down,
fallen from the sky,
splattering on the earth,
consumed by the soil,
muddied footprints and all
trudging through the wilderness,
carving a path of existence
breaking branches and
scattering bread crumbs
Still I am me,
standing tall among the taller,
enjoying the shade,
sipping lemonade and eating apple dumplings,
pushing, not pulling forward,
dreaming, (of course)
regardless of tire tracks and scars
or pointed fingers,
Pounding the pavement,
laying a foundation,
driven beyond
Parking lot base,
asphalt themed destinations,
a checkerboard of last rites and dead batteries,
yellow lines on the horizon,
handicapped up front
Looking out over the valley,
watching the world go by,
admiring the beauty,
loving life,
rejoicing in the fact
that it is all so immensely
vast . . .
as am I
Jul 22, 2016
Jul 22, 2016 at 8:28 AM UTC
fireflies zigzag following pupils pin *****
light mayonaise layers dead flesh and dead seeds
shadows bleed through the cracks
a lone train howls its hastening arrival
Alarming call like an unseen wolf
Flashing lights overhead and a low rumble
a condensed storm
helicopter cradling its dying cargo
bringing a regurgitation for the baby bird
disguised as a hospital with a faltering business plan
mufflers and mosquitoes parry the blows
winded joggers step next to termite eaten trees
Channel surfing seen a strobe lite
betraying the activities behind the neighboors
curtained windows scene
rituals carve another day into the known
comfort is routines cage
a worn trail rut that hardly allows
a different direction roll the stone uphill
Mar 26, 2010
Mar 26, 2010 at 10:15 PM UTC
Midday
on a streetlight unlit
a Hawk
the Moon
rings
when the clouds roll over
the smell of broken Earth
the Color on my hands
the sharp and savory
acid scent of Juniper
sprung green from Granite
a pine cone
in the soft, blue alkaline
sweet alpine Water
termite hieroglyphs
drift wood Houses in braille
rough under fingers
sun bleached tree stump
on lake shore stones
one root in the water
Spring sun
snow patches
in tree shade
the lichen bright lime
making patient animals
of old growth Cedars
Fall
from leaf to leaf
the paths of ants
bent over
staring at the Earth
where is this poem?
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
The probability of life itself is unpredictable
For I can’t extract your mind or heart to decode
Likelihood of possibilities in measurable quotient
For I can’t retract a past gone by to encode
Continuums of even chances and certainty
The toss of the toasted dime, the weigh of sides
Slashed slide all smashed and thrown in mines
Fallibilism of my indefinable opinionated delicacies
Attenuations of what life is attacks and strangles my neck
Global troubles of war, bombs, hunger, anger
Illogical connotations of overlapping determinism
I burrow like a termite in a convex rising molehill
Terminated in contrasted stations as we convene
Gripping hands to grasp our existence in life
I wonder about the whole of it, I think of it somedays
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 10:50 AM UTC
I've listened to their speeches.
Read their termite riddled planks.
They're unlikely to dethrone Barrack-
A pity, Mitt is no Tom Hanks.
They are out of touch with women,
unsympathetic to the poor.
They're still fighting social issues
that were decided years before.
For a party of small government,
They sure have a lot to say
about *** in America
among the ***** and the gay.
The Democrats, by contrast,
Hit all the right social notes;
Indeed, they will say anything
if it will buy them votes.
Then, when we hit the fiscal cliff,
The Obamas living large,
I'm sure he'll find some Bush to blame
as long as he's in charge.
Election Day is coming soon,
Both parties seek my love.
Alas, my favorite candidate
is None of the Above.
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 6:57 AM UTC
Come repaired
Only to be taken apart again
This house is no longer
A home for you
You there, rusting away
Atop a dusty window sill
Looking out through broken glass
At Memory lane
There is no medicine for your pain
No pill to take this time
You will not sleep here
You will not dream here
You will breathe here
Inhale the bitter past
You will walk barefoot
Through these solemn halls
You will cut your hands
On sharp words that still linger
On the ancient air
Toxicity
See these colors and remember
The paint tells a different story
Rotten wood drives you insane
Welcome back to termite hindsight
This place is no longer a home
A cemetery rests here
Ghosts live here now
You don't belong here
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
NOT YET –
mad is the little girl, tongue to teeth
sliver drinking the draft
of a pleasure clap in the dark
and dining wire bound
on the stock of recession shelves.
SOMEHOW –
white winds the hell picket fence *****
sterile wrapping her house
on stilts termite vein unsteady
and hiding the beryl murk
of its smudge-empty panes.
NOT LET –
fail is the innocent, laurel hung
slack dangling on the vine
from a hickory gibbet down grown
and twitching in the zephyrs
of prayer stammer and stench.
Jul 3, 2010
Jul 3, 2010 at 10:35 PM UTC