"terrarium" poems
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
I am banging on the walls
Loud, angry thuds echo around me
I am screaming for you to see me
But you tell me you can’t
You can’t see through the walls,
The walls you claim that I have built
My legs tremble as I fall
The skin on my knees curl around the gravel
And I wonder
As you walk away
Why can’t you see me through these glass walls?
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 3:02 PM UTC
eat terrarium dirt
**** seeds on polished wood
churn the german blood funnel
clock in; rise on the **** morning
licks her bruising shins
sleep on the creaky railing
under the vents the roaring subway
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
Terror-rium
We had an aquarium
A river, a lake, a sea.
On our desk—the ocean.
Our exotic fish, fished
from the very river, lake, or
sea which we have now.
On our desk—we provide forage,
food, plants, water, and fish.
The aquarium had us.
…
We had an insectarium
An arachnid, an insect, a butter
-fly. On our counter—the air.
Our countertop full of flourishing
flowers, fluttering wings of broken
butterflies, falling from feed, because
they drink—and we pluck their
wings, tape them to tapestries to
stare. Say, how pretty they are.
The insectarium had us
…
We had a terrarium.
A desert, a savannah, a floor of sand.
Our room is lit by a woodland, a
jungle, a place we’ve never been.
African violets decorate our reptiles,
all scales and shells and condensation.
It rains today—the lid which collected
our precipitation. Our pebbled floor,
formed over our marbled kitchen.
The terrarium had us
…
We had an arium,
and we destroyed it
to keep them on our desks,
nuzzled between family portraits and pens,
to remind ourselves of what
We used to have and
what we’ll never have
again, but at least they are
pretty, and no one needs
National Geographic to stare
anymore. We have our countertops.
...
This was read at the University of Kansas on May 10, 2013:
http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC
Enter the greenhouse.
I love it here. From the gritty soil
to the abundant moisture.
Yet my palms are sweaty,
my green thumb is sore.
Classical music is to growing,
as is a kid to a toy store.
For once, a life-size terrarium holds me,
instead of ants who see grass as the trees.
Constrained, but so free.
This world remains a prison, but it contains both you and me.
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 8:18 PM UTC
Caress
The butterflies
In the
Terrarium
Of my heart.
Come see
How they
Dance for you.
How they
Flap a whisper
Of nimble limbs
And draw thoughts
Of you
For my soul to sing.
How I
Want to touch you
With my
Grazing fingers
And wings.
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 11:09 PM UTC
#The quill's sodden ink evaporates
while this bell jar encapsulates
leaving these dreary words to permeate
only to rain back down and stagnate
this terrarium, my lonely estate
pickling eyes that spate
people peer through the glass only to deprecate
while I slowly start to acclimate
two horizons squint until light dissipates
allowing the darkness to overtake
monsters crawl out to dilapidate
snarls and growls devastate
this is fate this is fate this is fate this is fate
is it too late is it too late is it too late is it too late
echos verberate echos verberate echos verberate echos verberate
this is fate and it is too late these echos verberate and I ruminate
I ruminate and ruminate and ruminate and ruminate
with a languid gait
a countenance set straight
while I desperately try to create
a happy blissful sunny green free state
it's not too late it's not too late it's not too late
meditate meditate meditate meditate
don't let the glass alienate
pick up the hammer and swing
till the glass ***B E K
R A S.***#
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 10:09 AM UTC
**** if I know.
I scarcely understand much anymore.
I am but a puddle of coherent reminiscences
oozing across the floor into decoherence and
diffusing into maximum entropy.
We are in Hell:
all is Maya,
all is Mara,
all is Dukkha.
Yet, we are slaves
who love our chains.
And I am a lifeless, fetal,
**** economicus,
mortifying de rigeur
in the ossified skull of a
long forgotten **** sapien.
If only those kinship instincts could've
survived the havoc we've wrought.
Look at what we've done.
Look at what we do.
**** for money.
**** for oil.
**** for land.
**** for 'justice.'
**** for God
**** for 'the cause'
**** for the sake of killing,
and pave over what's left.
Leave a few trees and bushes for our
dystopic terrarium.
'Our Synthetic Environment,'
old Murray[1] called it.
Now, walk into the forest.
Be there. Stay there.
Do you feel it?
Any of this nonsense we call
'civilization'?
Or
is it that you feel something more. . .
poignant?
More true?
To a point where our heated debates
appear as no more than frivolous diatribes?
When do we stop all this narrative solipsism
and get to the ******* point?
None of this is real.
Our thoughts are not our own.
Have they ever been?
The Spectacle [2] reigns supreme
as we idle spectators
speculate idly upon it.
Borges's fable of the cartographers [3]
has reached its apotheosis,
and we are its unwilling
and unwitting victims. . . .
Jan 13, 2021
Jan 13, 2021 at 2:01 AM UTC
For Christmas
I would like a terrarium
So that in a small space where there is little to breathe and most die slowly and in pain
I shall make something beautiful contained within itself
And it shall never need to meet the outside world.
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 6:57 PM UTC
I used to write like I was smarter than people.
This was the ego of the sample of knowledge.
Now I write easy, because before, writing smart was the challenge, but now...
communicating like a human seems to be the challenge.
What am I?
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 9:49 PM UTC
the skies have poured out their blue
and something about the way they do
reminds me of what I did to you.
but you knew I was no good;
you’d felt it on my skin and in the hollows of my knuckles,
as if my words weren’t enough.
the going always gets tough –
this chronic rollercoaster, where neither of us
can hang on until the end of the ride,
this terrible love we keep walking,
you’re stumbling and I’m never talking
I don’t know what it means anymore.
it’s just us on the kitchen floor
wondering which was deadlier:
the knives or the fire.
we’ll pretend I’m not a liar
and that you’re not losing this game –
anything that helps you keep sane.
your blood terrarium, my empty echoes
this codependent existence so shallow;
only killing time,
only killing what you wish could be mine.
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 7:07 AM UTC
Coming out of the sleepy terrarium auditorium,
Whispering consciousness of rotten handfuls,
Then a great stranger, obelisk tall and stretching,
His hand and giving me a clue of what to do next,
A searing and scathing, loose triumphant look,
I almost tried to shield my eyes from its beauty,
Sound spilling out of the speakers in cacophony,
Climaxing and exhaling like a tired holy shaman,
Tranquil and pondering existence,
Wondering and re-examining what was the real reason,
Somehow it all seemed to melt away and each chattering,
Capsized example fell on the ears of catalysts,
Somehow the morning light had seamed through the curtain,
Training the new apprentices of next abreast,
Sitting in the waiting room panting and wailing,
When will it be their turn,
To change the minds of America,
While setting fire to the office building next door,
One of the commanders of chaos sat back in an easy chair smiling,
Further melting away layers I saw the,
Saints,
And,
Devils.
Nov 21, 2012
Nov 21, 2012 at 10:40 PM UTC
hey, you know,
i think there’s a terrarium under my skin.
i can feel the blossoming moss vein deep,
where none may tread but ghosts,
politely marveling at freckle constellations
and asking time-old questions like
“do you think god knows we’re here?”
(thats what i think about, when you scold me; “does god know i’m here?”)
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 5:31 PM UTC
childlike fascination
mystery obsession
...
terrarium in a cranium
barefoot expedition
...
valley sea
mushroom haven
...
fairy stars between trees
full jar
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 11:16 PM UTC
Don't fall down, the stairs are uneven
Haunted regrets, embodiment of liquor
Lacquered wood panels, smell of old alcohol
Guilty hands shiver on a switchblade shining
There by the door stands an old man leaning
Taunt him some more and he might start screaming
The haggard old mystic witch by the bedpost yawns
and the New Orleans bayou still shivers in a shimmering light
Tonight though, taste the tasteless tears on terrarium trellises
or tug away the tightness of the tortured terra firma tetsuo
and maybe tonight there will b-
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 7:02 PM UTC
I don’t know how love works.
But I know I left you on a Sunday after spending six months trying to shove the words that escaped me into the dozens of envelopes that you had sent over the last six years.
I don’t know how loves works but I know that Christmas Eve, when you held me and I cried, it was because I was already losing track of your world map hands as you navigated the clams in the soup your brother made.
I don’t know how love works, but I know that over spring break, i bought flowers i knew you wouldn’t even like to say I’m sorry, even though I knew I was just trying to make things better temporarily until I got the courage to say goodbye.
I don’t know how love works, but I know that when you force feed yourself a certain amount of affection, your body starts to reject it. You can only fill up so much artificial substitute for love, like cotton candy filling up my head and grape flavoring spilling out of my mouth all over your bedsheets like the time i was drunk and spilled hot chocolate with marshmallows and you yelled at me like they would never be clean again.
I can’t love a terrarium. I get too frustrated with things I can’t touch. I can’t fill up any more phone calls with rainstorms and giving up.
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 11:11 PM UTC
cloth-ed as clown
a spilt generation
somnolent
within our moral delirium
who would care-claim us now ?
paint your scrutiny
with our baffling strife of operations
as we lather up and ****** social
in the slaggy loft of our hive
plug uz from our heated terrarium
let's be proper met
examined with manner :
our morbid request
let us claim
meekly
something that is not yours
that we might budge on a generation
of spatty breeding
Nov 18, 2021
Nov 18, 2021 at 11:19 AM UTC
My Solitaire is irascible in aspect. Just over the Hill there; I used to carve my initial conditions into a blank stare, or a block of omission. But now my stratagems soar far beyond the pondering of Loneliness. Even Abandon cannot fathom Me.
I tend to orchids that have earthquake hearts and care for the waning moons in my terrarium of phantoms and glass apples. i anoint the chasm with vespers of Isolation that sparkle like a madness in phosphorus ecstasy. My books are Discreet.
I am their Shogan.
Jun 21, 2018
Jun 21, 2018 at 8:13 PM UTC
At the unknown railway station
all that I know,
and all that know of me,
has been left behind.
I am as the wide-eyed boy
at the window of a terrarium,
seeing life from behind panes of glass.
It is an odd,
blissful sensation.
A detachment of life from life situation
leaving me in an instant
inexplicably light.
Yet abruptly I fall solemn,
turning my face into my hands.
For revealed through its temporary absence
is a glimpse the true weight of ’I’.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 3:07 PM UTC
We Live in a terrarium..
With our lives we scurry around like little ants.
We run to the store.
We run to the Dentist.
We run to pick up the children.
We run to our jobs.
Every day pretty much like the rest.
Some hold out their chest as if they’re
important.
Others think they rule the world, but it’s just a tiny terrarium.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 7:29 PM UTC
I cut the wheel out in gravel,
I shaped a navel for the tadpoles.
Firmly, but gentle;
I dug out the furrows,
I made lush the fields,
I caused the showers.
And in that safe place, I deposited them.
So that they might grow.
But now they're adults!
Will they burn out all life
In their self-contained terrarium?
That is of their own making,
Their own doing.
For how high they have climbed up
Yet, how little they have grown!
Like Babel, like beanstalk,
Like Galileo's experiment at Pisa!
All things that go up must come down,
Right?
Feb 15, 2025
Feb 15, 2025 at 2:07 AM UTC
Incomplete.
Five
senses.
Provided
with.
Used
to survive
the
terrestrial.
Navigate
the jungle.
Terrarium
existence.
What was
needed.
Looking
up, woefully
incomplete.
What’s
above,
not needed
for the
terrarium.
No senses
provided,
evolved.
Beyond,
infinite
in nature.
Staring out.
Bewilderment.
Unprepared
for what’s
to come.
To sense
it all.
Apr 10, 2023
Apr 10, 2023 at 5:28 PM UTC
Eyes dart like arrows, following movement, avoiding light,
seeking, chasing, hunting with curious paranoia,
diving forward into the vibrant thrills of the world,
constantly watching, observing, analyzing all surroundings,
settling with calm, calculated responses to a constant data stream,
typewriter-read, scanning all, no threats detected,
forever alert to the split-second movements and signals that count.
A blade of scent cuts through my mind's forest, sharp and direct,
a slap to the face, an awakening, a trigger,
close-range proximity, long-distance remembrance,
lingering like visible clouds in the air,
tasteful, able to be tracked, subconscious gravitation,
melting into the sweet-smelling void,
glazed with natural laughing-gas, my feet already move,
locked on to something I can't even have.
Branches crack, leaves rustle, neck twisted instantly,
turning curiously towards such a dance on eardrums,
nature's symphonies rushing like rivers through my mind,
lifting me into the air with every vibration and harmonic syllable,
carrying me away from the chaos and into perfect harmony,
floating through time as music shifts and pulls my limbs into motion.
Various flavors glide over delicate hills,
gentle, explosive, I never know what to expect,
stinging or soothing, sweet or bitter,
will the swirls of savory life caress my soul,
or rip it to shreds and bite the tongue it feeds,
a beast to be tamed, but never conquered.
Toes dig into rich earth, springing forth with power,
muscles tensing, relaxing, hands grasping for life,
velvet's gentle touch, water's enveloping embrace,
submerged in nerve endings shooting lightning across the abyss,
like a stone skipping across a rippling pond, balanced,
bounding into endless skies as clouds swirl and the sun shines,
forever living within the terrarium of our Universe.
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 11:33 AM UTC
When my Calling is Calling
And I fail to answer
The Phonemes…
I’m depressed.
And of course, I must be.
Driven North of my South
By harpies
Draped in flags.
My constant Dystopia
More Terrarium
Than a home for
My bees.
And more Hive
Than any Home
For
A Dream.
A plush junket
Of close calls-
Where rice patties
Wane.
Because Prophets
Fail like crops.
And The News
Is just a new Nothing
In Imaginary
Palms…
Phantom
mad.
II
But when my Calling is Calling-
And Negotiations have collapsed.-
As foretold by Introspection
And served on a platter
Of Absolute Narcissism
Chained to an Unspoken Woe
In my Achilles Heel-
My Falderal, fumbling
For Unfaltering.s.
I almost digress.
III
I clamor to the forefront
Of Myself; maladjusted
To Sun spokes.
Privately
Waning.
A Tempered Steel
In a molten
Kaleidoscope-
Hoping
Love hath a Plan
That a Hell
Dismissed.
Or a Poem
Made sense
Of It...
Sisyphus.
Jan 29, 2021
Jan 29, 2021 at 5:39 PM UTC