"toddled" poems
I
Said the Table to the Chair,
'You can hardly be aware,
'How I suffer from the heat,
'And from chilblains on my feet!
'If we took a little walk,
'We might have a little talk!
'Pray let us take the air!'
Said the Table to the Chair.
II
Said the Chair to the table,
'Now you know we are not able!
'How foolishly you talk,
'When you know we cannot walk!'
Said the Table with a sigh,
'It can do no harm to try,
'I've as many legs as you,
'Why can't we walk on two?'
III
So they both went slowly down,
And walked about the town
With a cheerful bumpy sound,
As they toddled round and round.
And everybody cried,
As they hastened to the side,
'See! the Table and the Chair
'Have come out to take the air!'
3.5k
“She toddled in the mighty Duck
And almost never was”
Whether by design or luck
Or maybe just because
Summertime in Tennessee
So scorching hot and dry
The family thought a swim could be
Relief so we would try
While swimming came so easy
For most of us that day
But Mom was water queasy
So on the bank she lay
My friend and I, we swam like fish
In the deep Duck River
A day that would make you wish
This fun could last forever
My baby sister was so small
She could barely walk
She toddled and then down would fall
And jabbered with her talk
So Dad had moved into the deep
That’s when I saw it well
My sister ran without a peep
Into the Duck she fell
Momma screamed and I just froze
And out of sight she went
The muddy Duck would now propose
Another life be spent
My Dad had sprung to action
On hearing of the scream
He dived as a reaction
Into the muddy stream
.
.
.
And many years would pass us by
She studied hard and long
Nothing was too tough to try
She never got it wrong
A Ph.D and drug design
She makes the pills you need
If you were really in a bind
And needed meds indeed
She plays piano and reads the books
And knows so much inside
She sews and cleans and then she cooks
With logic as her guide
Accomplishments on every level
Complete and tried and true
But humble, never would she revel
In all that she could do
.
.
.
He came back up and looked around
His eyes began to beg
He dived again and there he found
And grabbed her by the leg
Upside down he pulled her up
And water did pour out
And soon we heard her cry startup
Relief without a doubt
.
.
.
Remembering that day and so
A blessing to repay
That was sixty years ago
But feels like yesterday
I sometimes think of all the luck
That happened just because
“She toddled in the mighty Duck
And almost never was”
Nov 1, 2022
Nov 1, 2022 at 5:18 PM UTC
The casket was coming up, swaying and wobbling
Like a novice skater’s layover spin,
The workings proceeding apace,
The stillness of the August heat
Punctuated by disinterested growl of the backhoe,
The occasional out-of-place jocularity by the excavators
The creaky jingle of the chains holding the muddied box
As it proceeded skyward in its clumsy poor-man’s Resurrection.
The affair was being observed by an elderly couple,
Old enough to be of no particular age.
Their car had Carolina plates,
But their inflections, their casually-tossed idioms
They noted that ruefully The grass needs mowed)
Marked them as natives.
They’d returned (Last time, most likely,
The wife uttered mournfully)
To take their son with them; he’d drowned when was five? six?
(The years will do that to a body, apparently)
In Kinzua Creek some half-century ago,
Back when little boys weren’t under a mandate
To be safe from themselves, as it were.
He was our boy! We’ve never forgotten him!
The old man said, the words snapping off
In a manner that spoke of something else altogether,
How the whistle at the Montmorenci
Went off at three and eleven for second shift,
And your *** had better be there,
As those were good jobs that didn’t wait for bereavement leave,
Because there was always someone
Just itching to take your spot on the line,
And anyway life went on,
At least in the sense that television screens went all to snow
And tires went flat and fuses blew
And eventually a dead child
Is not always in the forefront of your thoughts,
Only tiptoeing in when the Press ran a picture
Of the Montmorenci Area Class of whenever,
Or there was an item about some other family
Who opened their front door
To a grim sheriff’s deputy with his hat in his hand.
Eventually, after some time
And in defiance of both the odds and gravity,
The casket was settled into the back
Of the undertaker’s huge old black Caddy,
And the couple cane-toddled back to their car,
Following out the through the old spider-like gates
And onto the main road.
The brief procession fading from sight,
Until there was nothing left to see
Save the hillsides covered in old growth pine.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 11:00 AM UTC
People like you and me have grown used to dancing along,
To the raggedy tune of someone else's song.
We are able to dance, and smile, and duck, and roll, and weave,
While still clinging tightly to the things that we believe.
Sometimes we are led to believe we will lose it all; our heart, our soul, our very name,
Afraid they'll take away the us-ness of us; but still we play their game.
I wonder how many others know how to fake their hand?
Who keep the love caged up inside, to appear "normal" and bland?
Perhaps it is just us, perhaps just you, or, again, perhaps just me,
Or perhaps each individual just sees what they want to see.
Perhaps.
Perhaps...
Or perhaps, but...
I had a vision once; all the bad thoughts in the world were mine;
I ****** them in from everyone else, so that all the world felt fine,
And while all other folk were safe at rest, I cried and cried and cried,
And toddled down some empty street, slumped down a wall, and died,
Taking with me all the evil thoughts- the hate, the pain, the strife;
I believe it was the happiest I'd felt in all my life.
I tell you that to tell you this; all people's pain is pain to me,
And I would gladly give you happiness, in exchange for misery.
Don't keep those thoughts locked up inside, and hoard them for your own,
Or both you and I will surely die depressed- afraid- alone.
Jan 1, 2018
Jan 1, 2018 at 6:56 AM UTC
107
’Twas such a little—little boat
That toddled down the bay!
’Twas such a gallant—gallant sea
That beckoned it away!
’Twas such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the Coast—
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost!
1.8k
Went to work,
toddled of to eat my lunch,
it rang very loudly,
screaming,
mother answer me,
so I did,
the vibe of the cell,
The voice said momma,
you're there munching,
but your little dog is wailing,
why,
why, said I what's the matter?
"Mother you locked the dog in the study",
gee ****
I think she needs a ***
she hadn't had her dinner yet,
No sign of the spare key.
son in law climbed on the roof,
forced the window,
that's the truth,
clambered in from land outdoors,
the door was opened,
dog took to her paws,
dashed outside, running free,
my cool doggy had saved her ***
no mess on the carpet, the floor was dry.
the good dog had a better day.
(C)Livvi
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 1:46 AM UTC
I entered a room: a chamber so dark,
And chanced upon a golden ark.
I saw, but naught was there to be seen,
For the lone candle, with its lone beam.
I walked and sauntered and toddled and paced,
Toward that lone candle, but not, in haste.
I drew near and witnessed a sight, miraculous,
Behold a thousand others in my plight.
That I chanced upon this candle,
In this place of complete scandal.
I thank this beacon, this light that saved,
For a soul, a path it paved.
Sep 29, 2011
Sep 29, 2011 at 11:08 AM UTC
1.
Diaphanous dragons disgorge a deluge of diamonds
into the shadowed crevices of cumulus clouds.
Ruby-red sapphires overpopulate the glistening sky
like carbon-hardened locust: gorgeous messengers of the gods.
The Earth wears a crimson helmet, shielded from
the odious absence of ozone above the North and South poles.
Near Minneapolis, John Berryman's wizened body shatters
on the frozen riverbed below the Washington Avenue Bridge.
Angels weep to see him jump, as he waves a vaudevillian goodbye.
The sapphires blanch, then turn an angry, violent violet. Black holes ahead.
2.
Shakespeare and Mr. Bones **** on mortality's skimpy
skeleton of life. Will this broken body be resurrected?
Does it deserve such distinction? Better yet, does its daring,
drunken destroyer? Four hundred Dream Songs nod yes.
Berryman toddled ticklishly toward the last traces of transcendence.
Love & Fame broadcast how terribly his faith failed to trade
daily delirium tremens for the mysterium tremendum.
The God he prayed to demanded a syntax pure, plain.and perfect.
With jolts of jest, He jimmied paradoxes into koans. Berryman
howls for the sound of one diamond scratching the outline of his body on ice.
3.
He left a legacy broader than liquor, lechery and the love-struck ladies.
Lust seeded his fallow lacunae and lazily broke his wife's heart.
Scholarship scooted him to the squeamish, secluded top
of his Shakespearean class: Signal student turns trusted teacher.
Poetry cloned the Oklahoma clown in him. No successors,
no schools, no savvy peers, save Lowell. his fellow manic-depressive.
He dreamed songs of hilarity, humility, history, dehumanization.
Poetry proved serious business until it learned to laugh at itself.
Sapphires crackle under the weight of the creaking sun. They spin a kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors onto Berryman's obituary. Somehow, he has won:
An irreplaceable jewel of the sky.
Jul 23, 2019
Jul 23, 2019 at 4:01 PM UTC
We’d moved on in to a clifftop house
When our babe was very young,
I had to ***** a barbed wire fence
To keep our darling at home,
For Ellen was a precocious child
With a beautiful, smiling face,
But for all our efforts to tame her down
It was hard to keep her in place.
She would bounce about, would run on out
The moment we turned our backs,
Many a time I would see her climb
And she’d give us heart attacks.
‘She’s halfway up the chimney, John,
She’s climbed right up to the thatch,’
The wife would cry, and I’d almost die
In bringing our daughter back.
She’d stand awhile by the cottage gate
That led on out to the track,
That wound its way right down to the bay
On a narrow, winding path,
I wired the gate, and I thought it held
Till the day she broke on through,
And made her little way to the bay
Before we even knew.
I found her at the mouth of a cave
That sat just up from the shore,
And breathed a sigh of relief as we
Embraced, like never before,
But she pointed in to the darkened cave
With her tiny little hand,
‘I want to go in the cave with him,
That funny old sailor man!’
‘There isn’t a man in the cave,’ I said,
‘You must have been seeing things.’
‘Oh no! He asked me to follow him
And he showed me lots of rings.
He had a black patch over his eye,
And a ponytail in his hair,
I want to go where the sailor goes,
Will you let me go in there?’
I carried her back up the winding path
Though she clung to me and cried,
‘That cave is simply an eerie place
And it’s cold and damp inside.’
I should have taken more notice then,
I thought it was just a rave,
For days, young Ellen would speak of him,
The man who lived in the cave.
I went to check at the library,
The history of the town,
And read that smugglers used that cave
When nobody was around,
And long before there were buildings there
A smuggler on the run,
Had sheltered there in that dismal cave
With his daughter, Ellen Gunn.
I raced on home to the clifftop house
To find young Ellen gone,
The wife was having hysterics there
And I was overcome.
I ran, pell mell down the clifftop path
It was such a deathly scare,
And searched to the end of that awful cave
And I found her Teddy Bear.
A fisherman on the beach had seen
Young Ellen on the sand,
Then watched as a sailor took her in
To the cave there, hand in hand.
‘I thought that he was her father,’ said
The rustic fisherman,
‘She seemed quite happy to go with him
And he looked a kindly man.’
I must have searched it a dozen times
And I called, and cursed, and cried,
And prayed to god that I’d find my girl
Hid somewhere deep inside,
When out of the depths, she toddled out
Stood still, turned back to the cave,
And that’s when I glimpsed that sailor man,
Who stood at the back, and waved.
David Lewis Paget
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 2:44 AM UTC
She roared in on the back of a lion,
sipping cocktails of conscience.
Sat thinking of wall flowers and such mundane things,
as sharks circled the dance floor,
dark eyes on stalks,
they're assessing their prey.
As octopuses their arms keeping warm,
wrapped around the form of unsuspecting suckers who accept a token drink.
She crept out in a minicab,
somewhat the worse for wear,
sneaked into her bedroom,
flopped on to her needed bed.
Slept until she woke.
Feeling just a little puce.
slightly purple but not really brown.
She let wisdom take the lead,
as the day progressed,
was just at bit of befuddled, muddled fun,
The back bar full of biker's,
roaring more than wild lions,
to the echoes of the rock,
so heavily metallic,
the front bar had the Irish chaps.
trying hard to compete with the back bar noise,
it was ideal for her,
a rock chic at heart,
but she loves the Irish stuff to,
A wholly delightful crazy day.
Afternoon ended with a bang before six,
the bikers left and she did too,
the queen of solo got the bus,
toddled home and shared a curry with her daughter,
just what a mother and daughter ought to do.
my birthday written as a poem for you !
(C) Livvi
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 2:58 AM UTC
Hieronymus Bosch, who was only four,
Had toddled right out of my life,
I didn’t know whether he’d gone on his own
Or left with the trouble and strife.
She’d rave and she’d threaten to fly the coop
As she said that my ways were strange,
But whether she’d bother to take him too
Would have meant a remarkable change.
‘Why did you pick such a horrible name,’
She’d say, as she ladled the stew,
‘You gave him the name of a painter insane,’
(As he baited the bears at the zoo).
‘How can he live a commonplace life
With a moniker he can’t spell?
You’ve sentenced your son to eternal strife
Like that panel, a painting of hell.’
Hieronymus, he didn’t care about this,
He wanted to picture his world,
He’d flop and he’d slop in the mud, in his bliss,
And paint, till his toes had curled.
I knew that he’d be a surrealist when
He played with his mash, and was cute,
He swished it around on his palette to look
Like a man with a nose like a flute.
‘That kid is so gruesome,’ the wife had exclaimed,
‘He’s set on a roadway to hell.’
He’d crayoned a picture of me and her sister
Entwined on her favourite bell.
‘He isn’t like others,’ I used to exclaim,
‘He sees what he sees inside out,
He doesn’t like others, like hair-splitting mothers,’
And that’s when she started to shout.
I’ve searched and I’ve searched for Heironymus Bosch,
I’m trying to follow his trail,
The long line of beetles he captured in treacle,
The dead dog that’s eating its tail.
I know that he’s not with the trouble and strife
For she went into hiding in Greece,
He should be called Chester, the lad’s such a jester,
I guess I’ll be calling the Police.
David Lewis Paget
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 3:21 AM UTC
By tidal trance
I watched her dance
She skipped among the stones
Her agile grace
Brought smile to face
Before I toddled home.
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC
This is a personal record of times
an account of my life:
The joy, the strife
in counts of rhythms, in sequence of rhymes.
These words my story tells:
The preface is done. My life has begun.
Yet, long will it be before I recall...
I toddled, I played, I cried, they said.
And, then I remember: The start of it all!
As family grew, I already knew
The glow in my soul, and the gold in my heart.
I knew from within, with friends and with kin,
I'd form moral values I'd never depart.
I noticed a change: a self-rearrange
when things had come forward that hadn't before...
I thought differently: I felt differently...
This was the start of what life had in store.
Imbalance was found; a symptom renowned
for pain and for trials inside of one's mind.
What certain was sure; I was to endure
internalized trauma- The un-imposed kind.
This lasted for years; While haunting my fears,
Each day was a struggle: A fight to survive...
While all the day long, when nothing seemed wrong,
A war I was fighting, where anguish would thrive...
I fought hard inside, and almost I died,
till stabilization had entered my life:
And then: The relief! A sprouting new leaf!
At last, a decrease in this crippling strife!
It didn't just leave: Hear, and believe:
The pain went from raging to dormant in state.
At times it still flares, despite current cares,
But, overall, life went from dismal to great!
I still stand today with lurking dismay...
against mental flaws; A solid heart beating
provides me the rhymes, in rigorous times,
that this tumult inside, I'm defeating!
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 7:32 PM UTC
I used to cry soft gentle rain that toddled pitter-patter on the window pane. No one answered. No one came.
I used to cry barrages of torrents in my white canopy bed. Someone screamed obscenities from the other room “Shut the F**K Up” Someone whacked me on the head.
I used to cry with my face burrowed in my pillow, as a prairie dog. No one answered. No one heard. My tears corroded every word.
I don’t cry anymore
Feb 28, 2019
Feb 28, 2019 at 5:24 AM UTC
He said," your hair looks nice,
have you had it cut?"
I said "I had it done last week".
And then after being led down a blind alley of conversation,
I died,
I became a ruddy clam.
I don't get noticed.
Well never in August anyway,
In September I get noticed,
by those who just remember having seen me,
some place or other before,
not recalling,
where or when.
Me neither I'm afraid to say,
I see such an abundance of characters every day.
A few stick in my mind, not many tho'.
I'm never noticed beneath the full moon,
that only seems to happen in June.
In October, I get noticed by squirrel chaps,
but,they're only hunting nuts,
and I'm not one you know.
So,
To the chap,
who commented on my hair,
a smile, a thank you,
"you're so kind to say,
it looked a little better before it started going grey."
I toddled back home on the crest of a wave,
maybe,
just maybe,
I should have continued conversing,
instead of just walking away.
(c) LIVVI
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
I was a child
in my mother’s lap,
very small,
unaware of earthly matters.
On the floor,
I toddled
and grew.
Jocund, joyful,
Were my parents
when I looked up at them
with my child’s eyes.
I was in a school
with my book in a bag.
I wondered
what it would
make me,
what knowledge it would
give me
in its word maze
and its labyrinth.
But then,
I started reading
in a routine,
page by page
line by line
word by word.
Soon I felt
a deep association,
its every chapter
a philosophy,
Each word
a lesson of life.
The philosophy
taught me life skills
and made me powerful.
I have known
a life full of groans
ups and downs and stifled moans.
The vision that
life is cyclical
perpetual
ever learning
exploring
moving
like the sun, the moon
the earth itself,
that
nothing is final,
like a plant,
which is cut
today, but will have new shoots
next season.
That
when nature
is bountiful
it spreads happiness,
and sorrows
when it is dreadful.
As I studied what was contained in my book,
coded on its every page
in its every line,
it has felt
my emotions,
shared my happiness and
sorrows as well.
It has had my dust
on its face
felt my agony
in its open arms.
Now,
as and when
I am sad,
weary of life, my soul pent up,
I embrace my book
like a friend
snatched from a cataclysm.
Of course,
it isn’t merely a book;
it is a friend—
indeed, a friend.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 8:28 PM UTC
There was a smallest ever wee Irish soul
She lived within a largest oldest tree
Outside she grew a bed of Foregetmenots
She had a smile that brought such glee
When she toddled off to the market
She always carried a basket made of grass
And upon her ears hung jingle jangles
That she had made from bits of glass
Those that knew her called her Wee Wander
As she'd wander often here and there
Gathering wild flower seeds to sow in garden
And soon it all looked so beyond compare
With chocolate vine on her tree thus to climb
And little violates planted in shells of birds
When she spoke it sounded just like mucic
Her very voice danced rather than of words
Most of her clothes were colores of green
As Irish as Irish as Irish it can ever be
All the birds and butterflies knew her well
Little Wee Wander lived within a largest tree
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5f/65/ea/5f65ea7c7c4c8a3485c616af4134d71b--geocaching-fairies-garden.jpg
terrence michael sutton
copyright 2018
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 1:24 AM UTC
country girl
toddled back home.
sepia leaves traced behind her
tumbling on the flaccid, dusty loam.
country girl
in her licorice colored boots
daydreamed at the piebald trees
rotting from their roots.
country girl
dancing in auburn checkered dress
sprinted home mirthfully
looking like a mess.
Mar 13, 2019
Mar 13, 2019 at 9:58 PM UTC