"toadstools" poems
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
thing
Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life
face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and ***** and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
******* his life out of the dead leaves of greater life
than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty--
How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp
England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.
4.9k
Orange peel Thursdays and the Velcro shoes
Of children hordes
Who spider up Alice on toadstools in Central Park
Dusted psilocybin shoots my eyes through
With the clarity of ice and sliced mushroom
Steeping in stomach acid before finding blood
The kids are tripping like madmen or halloween candy
Like its time to release and give up to the nonsense
And let your young self congeal to a saccharine sludge
I don’t stroll in the park to keep my mind sharp
I’m here because it’s a riot
My head can throb to the jittery birds
And the blasts of carsong
It’s the right kind of rhythm to walk to
** ** **
Ketamine days and the lolling slums
To make sure the insane stay insane
And the hobos are washed with spit from the clouds
And the subway exhaust always hangs in our hair
And the old Coney Island burns again and twice more
We don’t pretend to understand what we see
In subway grates thirty feet wide
Like the earth punching out of work for a bit
Opening to you her *** belly
So you can check out the strips of metal inside
Before she slurps you down and with an esophageal squeeze
Shoots you through the turnstiles
The train squeals and grinds down our eyes
With thoughts as slow as ketamine
Makes room for schizophrenia in a conversation
We’re listening to ‘til sundown
** ** **
Years full of Brooklyn and the assorted pills
Makes offal fit for punks in name brand shoes
Squared off with police in the park
Being beaten for the fun of being beaten
Peacoat locals pass the days in supermarkets
And you grow up to the loony mumble
Of the woman who knows the boat
Moored at the end of the street
Mansion of the stray cat colony
You help her with her daily chore to feed them
Tabbies popping the pills of the homeless
And puking in tandem all over their house
Living off generous dying folk
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 4:02 PM UTC
He was known as the local Mycophagist
In the dales, the woods and the hills,
What happened was sad, for he wasn’t so bad
Just a tad underdone, Toby Gills,
They say that the cord was around his neck,
He was born with a carroty mop,
And a pale white head, he was almost dead
When the doctor had called out ‘Stop!’
They cut the cord and they let him breathe,
The damage was already done,
The blood had been stopped to his carroty top
So they said that he’d always be dumb.
But he found a niche where the fungi creeps
And went out collecting the spore,
In a year or two he knew more than you
And the college Professor next door.
He studied his mushrooms with loving intent,
He knew about hen of the woods,
He knew about bracket and shaggy manes, magic
And paddy straw, they were the goods;
He fostered his lobster and hedgehog and oyster
And coral fungi and stinkhorns,
But didn’t discern between fly agarics
And toadstools that grew in the lawn.
He grew his spore in a deep, dark cellar
And sold to the folk who came by,
And never would judge between Widow Weller
And the ordinary witches of Rye,
He’d sell death caps, and pigskin puffballs
Not thinking to question them why,
Or who would be eating his laughing Jim’s
And whether they knew they would die.
The air was thick and the air was damp
And he fell in the dark one day,
Scattering toadstools into the air
And their spores had floated away,
He breathed the spores right into his lungs
For he hadn’t been wearing a mask,
But ****** them in right over his tongue
And they came to his lungs, at last.
I happened to see him out in the street
He was finding it hard to breathe,
He could only take a couple of steps
Then sit on the kerb, to heave,
I tried to help but he waved me away
And his eyes were yellow and cruel,
Then I saw what he’d thrown up on the kerb
Some yellow and red toadstools.
The man was a walking toadstool spore
They were popping up out of his hair,
Pushing their way though his carroty top
In a bid to get to the air,
And his skin was blotched like a puffball, he
Looked up at me, and he cried,
As a giant toadstool grew from his throat
And he lay on his side, and died.
David Lewis Paget
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 5:22 AM UTC
spoon fed my keepsakes as nothing blots the sun so much
you teach me how to cringe in spun sugar. the nape of your
neck.
gleefully, we usurp the thicket of our mild dementia. sullen
joy equipped. a sumptuous dirge curdles the myth, your fins
***
as troubadours, we malinger in the pith of our blunt fruit. crust
removed from our daily bread. our basket of basilisks, bathe
in stone.
duel wielding our gazebos... we bivouac in our ambivalence, by
turns we move. you tip toadstools as i milk maidens for their
candelabras.
our palominos run. we do
violence to timpani and click mice.
pc
drifting in the cyberwocky. we transit the binary auto-bond
and paste
whats
clip.
blue thumbs thread cranberry noose. our ***** nods off. fronds
of juniper and cannabis slap the window pane. throughwhich
a *** mouse pounced on frond’s sway.
startled, we move the furniture of our eastern proclivities.
for thine is the kingdom
of our discontent !
swing-shift lap-dogs, trundle west of the east village. smell
of ****** and nag champa. idiots sting.
idiots braid zodiacs with greasy fingers. [ indeed ]
and
you
preach from your gut...
( your left breast marvelous with taint) and saltwater taffy.
we
laugh again-
at things we have
and now
only
harbor ghosts
where the rain
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
this is the new
intimacy.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 7:03 AM UTC
Swirling around me
they danced upon frosted tips
over shimmering shards of grass
stirred by the early morning breeze
A hundred sparkling amber eyes watching as
I walk amongst them, smiling, mesmerized by such beauty,
enchanted on the turn of a new Season, now the last butterflies have gone.
Filligrees of autumn, flashing golden in the low Winter sunlight,
dashing off across the field only to return to peek once more.
Delicately, they flutter up around and skyward,
And I watch
magically
transfixed
as faeries
descent down
again from up above
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 9:13 AM UTC
Toadstools and gremlins
Peaches and lemons
Wash, chop, and mix
Together create your fix.
Blood and minced liver
Stirred without a quiver.
Before placing in the oven to bake,
Add in flour, three eggs, and old heartache.
Forgotten promises and toenails
Beaten together with the eyes of two killer whales.
Throw in some chocolate and hash,
And Liar’s Brew is ready in a flash.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 12:53 PM UTC
And we dance upon toadstools,
drinking the teeth of dandelion lies,
we leave them speechless,
promising the world will die before us.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 7:41 PM UTC
I broke down Thursday
And the wind was cracking loud and
beating my spine into an
uncomfortable submission
I broke down
and all the graves were upside-down
letting the maggots see the sunlight
and the wood was damp and splintered
I broke down
and all the rocks became toadstools
and I sat and I knitted a scarf with
all my worries weaved in with the wool
I broke down Thursday
and the car wouldn’t start and my eyelids were
cinder blocks and the colors started leaking
as I realized my battery was dead
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
When I was young my mother painted the ceiling with every color there was.
She made the falling stucco and sealant into clouds and rainbows and horses;
horses of blue and purple and green.
One time I left my room and stared all night at the stars,
they were so much more vivid.
You couldn't deny their presence,
they were like little beings coming straight toward you.
Didn't need to look up, you could stare straight forward out of the window and it's like they were looking at you too.
But cautious, they never came close enough for me to grab them and trap them in my hand like a rolli-polly.
There were fireflies that loved to gather like tiny self supporting oil lamps by the tree next to our house.
They would swim around me because they knew they were far too clever for me.
There were toadstools that I would kick out of principal and river rocks that were never smooth enough for the current hadn't the will.
Caves where the ivy would circle for no reason but to give me the best hiding place of all time.
We ate snow that one time, when it had snowed for the one time it would in 7 years.
There was a single stoplight in a square of one tiny block where I would get dizzy riding my bike.
Then the Crawfords would let me ride their horse.
That's where I got stung by a bee for the first time and I fell on the red dirt road and cried and cried.
One time a tornado almost swallowed me whole while my trailer baby-sitter wasn't looking.
I remember asking with all sincerity for the third time how to spell cat.
Lolly-pops adorned the daycare where I watched trolls singing Kokomo.
These are all the good things I can remember,
so I cherish them.
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
Your mouth
Reminds me of a pus spewing wound
Building poison pressure bursts to the surface
Erupting a hot flood of thick green infection
Splattering over everyone you touch
Like volcanic bile.
Your words
Are an ill smelling fungus
A sick compilation
Of every hateful thought
Infesting your heart
Like a sac of wormy toadstools
Your life
Is a blame game
A who to maim game
Projecting fault
Verbal assault
Destruction the goal
Of your cold blackened soul
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 7:31 PM UTC
Garth lay still in the gilded cage
Unable to move a thing,
The bars were merely spiders’ webs
Of a faery’s magicking.
He’d wandered into the Faery Ring
Where he’d seen the mushrooms spread,
And now was caught in a faery spell
With the rest of the living dead.
With Tom, the Candlestick Maker’s son
And a barrel of candlewax,
He’d dawdled home from the marketplace
And lay in the beckoning grass.
He woke to find he was tightly bound
With a faery up on his chest,
She said, ‘Lock him in the cage as well,
Along with all of the rest.’
And Madge, the maid with a milking pail
Who was sent to milk the cow,
She’d wandered off on her way; she thought,
She needed to feed the sow.
She woke to mushrooms, ten feet tall
All towering over her head,
The stalks were bars, set under the stars
And her limbs, they felt like lead.
While Tim the Tinker was there as well
With his knives and sharpening tools,
His grindstone lay in a pile of hay
And the bonds on him were cruel.
The beggar lay in his filthy rags
While the rich man muttered, ‘Shame!’
He’d soiled his boots and his Regency suit,
Was bound with his watch and chain.
They lie not far from the caravans
Of a gypsy camping ground,
So Faeries say: ‘Let’s take them away
Before they’re seen and found!’
But dancing into the faery ring
Is the Gypsy, Mavourneen,
Who stumbles over the gilded cage
And steps on the Faery Queen.
The top flies off from the gilded cage,
The webs of the bars are torn,
And Garth crawls over the mushroom heads
To swear, ‘I feel reborn!’
The faeries weep as they carry their Queen
In death, to their Faery Dell,
There’s mushrooms still in that Faery Ring,
But now, Toadstools as well!
David Lewis Paget
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
Do you see what I see?
We have descended into the belly of the beast.
Houses crowd together, their dead eyes staring out.
They’ve sprung up overnight like
Ugly toadstools.
The machines on the hill are busy
Scraping away the old. By that I mean
What was there before,
A forest naturally,
And putting up these monstrosities instead.
It can’t be let well enough alone.
There are too many people and someone’s got to make a buck.
The world burns down to the filter.
We suffer the fevers of the dry needle people,
And are left with what has been
Torn out from under us.
Some privy chair propped us up with potions.
Dutiful pawns, riding the arcs they have fashioned,
They pay us a small ransom
To cull and sell their wares.
Simple sticks and carrots are not enough to wake us.
The damage thus wrought we pay no mind to –
Subdivisions, shopping malls, parking lots.
There are too many people and someone has to pay.
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 9:33 AM UTC
Where is that secret glade?
The one where time seems to fade
In that place magic pools
And fairies lounge on toadstools
Through it flows the silver stream
I can still see it in my dreams
You can hear the trees talk
Just close your eyes while you walk
At night all the stars will wink
And in fly Peter Pan and Tink
On his pipes he calls the Wild
And if you are a beast or child
You can feel the song in your chest
But I now have a silent breast
I can't find the secret spot
I think I grew up and forgot
But you are young and know the way
I know full well that I have to stay
Just tell me stories of your fun
And I will remember being young
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 2:25 PM UTC
Comes.
Mystical runes cast
The old forgotten songs sung.
I summon all my power from white fire.
It approaches stealthily;
The darkest hour.
The blackened *** will be stirred.
Words unspoken for a thousand years,
From blood less lips said.
Owls talons, lizards and toadstools,
With this potion my small vial fill.
Dragons, demons, imps and sprites,
Salute in homage and bow down.
Ghosts appear if I so desire.
With a wave of my hands.
The contents of the glowing cauldron,
Bubbling fiercely,
Turning the future red.
And so with out announcement
Striking of twelve on the hour
What was foretold has begun
It comes;
The darkest hour.
This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M. Darby Sept. 21, 2014.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC
Take a glimpse back down the cobbled Roman road, and you will bear witness to a catalogue of decadent milestones which await unrestrained consummation.
But I am now a weary pilgrim who wanders through misty forests, where the sound of cracking twigs around the badgers sett, shatters the serenity of twilight ecosystems.
Toadstools are not a part of my current diet. Therefore, I bid you farewell. When you stand by the sparking fire at the ancient gatehouse, you will resolve the carnival of hypnogogic and hypnopompic startlements.
Therefore, before you begin your journey of forgotten mystical awareness, I must ask one thing of you: are you able to recollect your whereabouts in the next lifetime?
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 2:27 AM UTC
A whisper in the silence,
It's the grass having some fun,
Rustling in the sunshine,
It's only just begun,
So long it's getting tangled ,
In many tongues it's twisted,
For on the breeze it's playing,
Her lies she spreads mischievously,
She tells them to the tree,
Through the green a mismatch of fairy folk creep,
Weaving magic through their hidey holes,
The place in which they sleep,
The toadstools all have frogs on,
They're catching butterflies for tea,
In the midday sun they feed,
Dragon flies are blowing fire,
illuminating summer skies,
While the grass still stands up messy,
Telling all it's lies,
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 10:14 AM UTC
i step among
the stone gnomes
and cement toadstools.
Footsteps my
only eloquence.
Not for tomorrow
For the frozen moons
in the stables
of my imaginary calendar.
Not for
yesterday.
Where the leaves swirl
In the currents
Of memories.
But for
this present
moment.
frolic anonymous
in my insignificance.
The fruit of joy
ripe
at this moment
in the silence
of my simple tongue.
Echoing out
into
the blessing
of being forgotten
as moths like time clocks
keep
precise the
pacing of stars.
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 6:11 PM UTC
The ants wave their antenna in anticipation
the bee's do their work in the name of propagation
and as the steamed cake is taken out of the oven
on hilltops the witches hide in secret caverns
The Jackdaw sings to the four winds
thrones are toppled of ancient kings
all the cities slumber ready to wake
when the topping is poured on the magic cake
Toadstools of tales will pop up from the soil
kettles around this aged land will start to boil
the children that have never grown old
will grow with mutuality beings so bold
All the casks from sea wreaked ships
will cast mariners *** onto their lips
for all that do dwell here so await
that wondrous sweet, the magic cake
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
By NeonSolaris
© 2013 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 4:40 PM UTC
Thrown into existence, my words
writhe in the throes
of their own growing pains,
sinking like stones
somewhere in the midway
of catharsis and precision,
half-knowing they're alive
and scared half-to-death
of falling like a tree
with no one around,
of never making a sound
before crashing to
the forest floor
where toadstools eat
away their meat
and ivy clamors
at their bones,
blank tombstones for
an unmarked grave
where no one ever goes;
but that kind of silence
is just a bad dream,
they'll come to know,
for all breath is immortal
even if the growing's slow.
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 4:13 AM UTC
our love was-
Is-
Immature.
But it is true.
From toadstools upturned
To faerie jinxes,
It is true.
And I know, in my spirit,
That your hand was destined to meet mine.
One way or another.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 10:59 PM UTC
wherever you get You from
I saw you first. i wore your worst demise.
a shrewd disguise, the likes of toadstools in a ring of fire.
you're ablaze in my Right Now. you have no future
that a wet kiss can not remedy.
you are in-between
the angles of our descent.
from wherever you're whence... From Whence You Came.
we are strange people.
leaping
from the Brillo pads in the sky
toward the garrulous mundane.
the glorious vice. wherever you get
You From...
I saw saw saw saw saw your Thirst.
i adored the rapturous night night. nightly!
i knew you were wise to your decline, but you lingered...
for Infinity had no End for you, but
your Sanity. And That was forfeit.
when i saw it
gone gone.
and made you less a lasting than a watched ' no more '
you can't save my skin
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 3:17 AM UTC
i knew you would forget my name
if i didn't write it for you every day
for you to see.
so i found the bridge your car whizzes under
every day to work
and sprayed it in blue
with toadstools and fireworks
pretty girls and tampons
was it enough to wipe the yellow from your mind?
i knew you would forget my name
if i didn't write it down every day
for you to see.
so i shimmied up the sky and hung a banner
of azure eyes and white, white teeth
and waited.
but next week i saw it
floating down the river
with two empty cans of chewing tobacco
and a lemonade carton.
i knew you would forget my name
if i didn't write it
big enough
so i held my breath
with my head on the tracks
and waited for the rumbling to stop
by chance i relived that scene
in the cosmic cloister where i'm still waiting
saw that my head was smeared for a mile
trying to spell out
Hello!
but the trail was an unripe cantaloupe
i turned away
and wept
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 10:43 PM UTC
Left my head in a cotton wool cloud,
Drizzle bathes my hair,
A halo of warmth exuded,
Sensibility is too elusive,
Thoughts and indecision bind my head, blinding my eyes,
Pink ribbons strap my heart to my sleeve,
Not mad, not really mental,
Sentiment got me,
I can't fight anymore,
Put my banners down,
Folded them up and stashed them away,
Don't want my pasted frailty revealed,
I hide under toadstools,
To avoid my own toxicity,
A ***** mess of misted glasses,
Can't see the wood for the trees,
The trees have more insight than me,
The grass whispers to my heart,
Telling me I'm gonna be alright,
I'm not sure, I don't feel right!
I wish I did, lost between here and there,
Lost, maybe I'm not anywhere,
I really don't care!
Poetry is my outlet, my way of escape,
Crushed, squashed like a superficial grape!
Livvi Kent June 2013
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 6:43 AM UTC
Where was I?
I fell through the sky when they all thought chicken little cried wolf
Somewhere in a black hole sun
A coin stands on it's edge and things aren't what they seem
Bermuda Triangle violently exhaling anomalies
The air splits like a wound when propeller blades start spinning too fast
Eventually we all get ****** into this perfect storm
I hear it's a place where magicians perform
Pull me out of a hat and watch the universe unravel
My heart strings wound too tight
The world collapses like a lung
Where was I?
Always dwelling in ancient libraries
Deciphering unknown artifacts
There's foreign footprints in these catacombs
All these digital files and old photo albums
Analyze, evaluate, re-analyze
Question everything
Metamorphosis manifests
And the chameleon knows how to change it's scales
The world goes off balance when Atlas's shoulders get tired
Where was I
When the sirens sounded their alarm?
Have you seen the basements of my mind?
Charcoal smeared and cold dust
Cluttered and hazardous
Climb out the fire escapes in the thick hot heat of things
Underground bunkers at Hiroshima
Salem burning
There are witches under the house
These tornadoes don't rest
because the scarecrow has a stick up his ***
Where does the lion hide?
Where does the lion sleep when the jungle's on fire?
How does the tin man ****
Where was I?
Somewhere down the rabbit hole
Running out of time
That ferocious lunar grin
Meet me under the Cheshire moon
In that last lamp light
The toadstools tremble beneath our toes
Did you plant these mushroom clouds for us?
The mad hatter struck a match
and our house of cards is burning down
Why do my hands smell like gas?
I saw you catching ash on your tongue
I guess there's something beautiful in the way things burn
The roses are dripping red
and there's blood on my hands
The dream is gone when the queen cuts off
another head
Where was I?
Always digging tunnels in the ant farms of my mind
Dirt covers up old bodies
I leave them a rose
For paradises lost
For another lost soul
Another Eden gone to hell
Something slithered in the grass when the apple fell
Apocalypse now
But what is it about the way things disappear?
Where was I?
Where is here?
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 11:32 AM UTC