"underbellies" poems
*Soft underbellies of corruption, impropriety and moral decay
Blatantly masquerade as societal bulwarks to aggression and disintegration
Minions fine-tuned to dance to the tune
Of godfather functionaries champion
Progressively retrogressive causes that follow
The course of destruction.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Reason and logic persuade otherwise
It’s thus “safe” to conclude that
A compassion filled individual
Quintessentially embodies a positively radicalized individual
Wielding immense unbridled power
To impact society in ways unfathomable
Whilst in complete understanding of the fact that
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely”
Are you that compassion filled individual??*
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 11:06 AM UTC
The rain falls softly on the sleeping city…. Cloaked in the blanket of a monsoon lull…. A few stray dogs scamper for shelter as the first storm of the season colours the dawn a deeper crimson…..
The thunder rumbles from the north east…a deep slow sonorous sound coming from the underbellies of the moisture laden atmosphere…..
The soft drizzle forms a hazy blanket of morning mist around the city…..already stirring with the first signs of life…. The resurrection of the everyday work-a-day world…….
The musical tinkling of a bell echoes around as a pushcart brimming with flowers rushes down the street, hurrying to the market…fresh, preened and ready…to be sold to the highest bidder…
The soft music of the approaching storm inspires a boatman, out on the holy river, to sing…… his voice echoes over the bass of the thunder……a plaintive pleasant humming……the nuances of the bhatiali fill up the empty cracks in the morning……
The rain deepens…………the drizzle expands into the monsoons first downpour… pitter-patter sings the rain, reverberating off a thousand tin roofs……the sky darkens……enveloping the dawn in its grey being…..
Somewhere, someone tunes a harmonium…..clears a throat…a hand draws a curtain aside…..
The peaceful reassurance of the daily azaan spreads out from the mosque…..calling the faithful to prayer…..
The flower vendor…now setting up shop, attaching an extra strip of plastic sheet to fend off the rain…. Stops a moment and bows his head as the nearby tolling of a bell and the sound of a conch shell being blown announces the beginning of a new day in god’s abode….
A woman kneels down in a pew…..praying…..the calm of the church mirrored in her peaceful face…..
The rain looks down at the city……..now, half awake…slowly stretching its limbs……..stirring from the depths of a restless rest…………awakening to the jangling of a bread earner’s faith……
The shower relents……..probably giving in to all the Monday morning groans and grumbles emanating from a city forced back into consciousness…..
Finally, all that remains is the moisture on the flower vendor’s tarpaulin and the shadow of the boatman’s song on the rippled river…….
May 4, 2013
May 4, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC
I can’t help but mourn the frogs, flattened
like Wile E. Coyote after the inevitable boulder
plummets from a great height, leaving him
mashed on the pavement while the Roadrunner
speeds off - vroom, vroom, beep, beep.
I try to steer around them, but they blanket
the road in biblical numbers during the rain
and it’s like some impossible video game
weaving through masses of randomly hopping life
a certain amount of death is unavoidable.
When I walk the road I can’t stop
counting one, two, five, ten, twenty
cartoon-flat bodies littering the pavement
where I extinguished their glittering
copper and golden-green existence.
Last night, on the panes of every lit window
frogs of all sizes and colors gathered
outside, they covered doors, watering cans
even lined up single file on the coiled garden hose
like they were climbing the ladder to frog heaven.
Through the glass, I admired their rhythmic
throats and soft, creamy, underbellies
one, two, five, ten, twenty
fragile creatures seeking warmth
in the hastening darkness.
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 1:14 PM UTC
After the storm,
the spider fine tunes its web-
spiraling inward,
plucking at strands
strung lyre-like
between the apple branches.
Shrinking fingers of light
slip from the underbellies
of low slung clouds
that stream by
nearly snagging the tree tops.
The wind fills the web
like a jib stretched out
before the slapping bow of a ship.
Meanwhile, our small planet
hurtles forward, circling
on strands of patient gravity
spun by God knows who or what.
Satisfied with her spinning,
the spider finally
settles into place
at the center of a billowing universe,
waiting for some small
something to come sailing by.
Tom Spencer © 2017
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 7:15 AM UTC
"The Gathering Storm"
Shifting, churning, swirling, .... the breeze comes spritely
from the slate colored billows of the thunderclouds.
A gentle whisper at first,..... then building to a crescendo,
tickling the underbellies of leaves..... and rolling them over.
Bending the supple tips of branches to a rythmn
unknown to any author of music.
A rythmn of nature following no rules.......
and knowing no bounds.
What reason shall it follow,....
when the flapping of a sparrows wings,
And brief stirring of the air by a single bird,
......a half continent away
Shall have a cause and effect on what...
we feel pulsing against our exposed skin.
Is it not so with us,.... each one of us as a single sparrow,
flitting about and mingling with other creatures
Shall we not have an effect on that,.... that we touch
with our alterations of what is... and what was
We can only have hope,.. to manage the chaos
of the seeds that we sow... and the sprouts of our intellect.
Not knowing what will grow from our aspirations of changing that
that is .... to that,... that we dream it to be.
Shall we dare to become the God that we have worshipped .....
Shall we dare become the ... Sheperd's of the universe.
Perhaps, !! ..... but we must lay down the rules and know the bounds.
Let us not forget,..... we are but caretakers
for the creations of a greater spirit.
"The Gathering Storm"
Written By Dennis Gilchrist
Aug 30, 2011
Aug 30, 2011 at 9:07 AM UTC
*Beneath the facades of meticulous composure
Rehearsed mannerisms that are etiquette conformist
And Mechanized body language are underbellies
Immune to society’s manipulation
Storms rage continuously and incessantly
To one’s chagrin and no recourse to assuage
The emotionally grim state of affairs
In sight on the expanse horizon of chance
Feeling and emotion
Have a mind of their own
Which society with its immense
“Instruments of power”
Can’t effectively control
But still the bird’s wings are
Clipped
Whether by chance or design
Is an issue reserved for the deities
That’s if they do exist.*
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 6:03 AM UTC
~For Eleanor~
<•>
don't
believe in fate or luck,
never won no lottery,
even the next word of
every poem word, product of hard earned
stolen lust affairs
me desiring,
of acquiring
the infamy
of saying it & making you believe it,
all new (ha!)
while reusing worn-out words,
stolen from unknown predecessors,
lovers and prophets
but then, read you,
a-believing now that only princesses
may have the magic powers to do,
to sense, the incongruence,
of the most ordinary lives,
the ways we-hide-in-our-underbellies,
the faces of our elven selves,
that we are desperate to see anew,
without the blemishing scars of experience
writing it morning fresh from dream filled sleep
so my sinner summer sun dying requests
you to be reminded:
even a prince, only has just so many
golden opportunities,
so quit stalling,
shoot out your next from your
handgun mind
yup, no luck, good fate, for me
held in abeyance for
the next first date, maybe
as I write
Katy Perry
is ear-worming in my head,
ignite the light!
do you see us
awaiting in the shadows
for the definition of your words?
<•>
^divergent communication:
pattern in which the sender gives conflicting messages on verbal and nonverbal levels and the listener does not know which message to accept.
read https://hellopoetry.com/eleanor-prince/
Aug 27, 2017
Aug 27, 2017 at 11:53 AM UTC
We want to be remembered.
Is that not why we fold
pieces of gum into
the neat underbellies of tables,
is that not why we stomp up silent stairs,
slam arrogant doors, push back nonchalant chairs?
And is that not why we bury half finished cigarettes,
cherry stained from lips, and ashed
from the careless shakes of wrists?
Or throw empty bottles
as far as reluctant arms allow,
so that satisfying clinks can reassure us
of those other things,
as broken as our lives or sometimes
hearts.
We're afraid to be forgotten.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 8:18 PM UTC
Look for glasses overflowing
Underbellies showing
Of people never knowing
Just exactly where they're going
Follow buttons glowing
Because it's all for the showing
Till you're drowning in the pool
Wish you coulda kept your cool
But it's too late. Too late for everything.
Nothing's fixable. The damage is permanent.
Look at this mess, I must confess.
It's the biggest yet.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 11:14 AM UTC
her precious breath
yearns for warmth
and contact between the sheets
her body sways and grinds
her spine is a limitless ocean
her limbs are ropes to climb
they are towers and spires
filled with millions of subtle wires
she is noisy and delicious
they heard moaning
coming from the bedroom
as she came into her darkness
she held it and allowed it to shine
yet transformation is endless
its happening all the time
like underbellies rising
undercurrents entwining
she is sovereign and sublime
content to birth the world
from between her juicy thighs
no longer does she hunger
for your silly little lies
and yes her beauty is music
and its too bad really
that you happened
to be away for the night
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 7:18 PM UTC
I saw
the underbelly
of a dragon
in my sleep last night
revealing the mysteries
of the entire universe
& somewhere else,
in my imaginations,
I set a wild horse free.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 10:56 AM UTC
A squall out on the high seas,
lightning illuminating the underbellies
of dark and heavy clouds.
The delayed thunder barely reaches my island.
It hasn't rained here in almost four months.
Out, under those clouds
instead of here, under this palm
I could wrap my body in that storm
and feel the lightning lash my back
and caress me in the dark
between the strobes of light.
I could drown beneath the beating waves,
and maybe find a mermaid.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
I used to write about heaven
Because, I knew that I was the type of person
Who would never see it,
Not one that drinks too much
Swears very often
Smokes so heavily, as I do
I used to think there was beauty
In a place that I couldn't see
In a location that isn’t mapped
I thought that in the absence of the tangible verification
Of its own acuality that
It could be anything I wanted it to be.
It changed over the years
First I wrote of it as a couch of clouds
Blue bundles of cotton
With light pink underbellies
That floated free and molded to only me
Then I wrote it as if it was a movie theature
With pictures blown up in front of me,
Mostly home movies that would zoom in on my mothers face
As some Elton John slow song played in the background
Timed perfectly with my mother's movements
And the popcorn was free.
You read all of these ideas of mine
Of what heaven was like
And you agreed and said,
"They are equally bad places to never be."
Now I don't write of heaven often
I sleep next to you much more
Than I drink
Or I smoke
I still swear very often
But the beauty of a place I can't see and could never be
Seems to have lessened to me now
And my idea of heaven are things I can verify
This bed,
Blanket,
Your head underneath a pillow.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 7:44 PM UTC
A ship in its harbor is always safe,
But that’s not why ships are built.
Ships exist to carry passengers
And wobble through ocean’s stilts.
She is not built to never leave
Or face a dangerous trip.
It’s made to face the roaring seas
Even if her frame will rip.
At least she had a story,
At least she lived her life.
At least she saw the world
And lived with confidence and strife.
Ships are made to be used
And their underbellies torn.
It’s holes to be patched
And wooden body worn.
But without wounds it would just sit.
Useless and rotting bit by bit.
Withering away until her maker tears her up
Or gives her away to simply fill his cup.
A boat whom never sees the war
Can never say she’s tried.
A boat who’s never held the wounded,
Can never say she’s cried.
And a boat who’s never lived a life
Can never say she’ll die.
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 1:26 AM UTC
.
our noses huffing our eyes flirting out
vetting the loose night air
a display of yearning we did a grand deed
a mammal slain at our heart
and we are the wrecking children
we killed ourselves a deer
( no small thing )
flashlights propped in nooks
open the prey for dressing we decorated a tree with the task
slings of intestinal tubing
open prey for dressing
vocal prayer for the ****
praise the attributes that we ended
the characteristics we assigned it
live meat in perish organs adding moist hot breath
to a waking cold night
after our butcher act
after the parcels and beast are stowed
amongst the trees we take off as phantoms in touch
'to ourselves be sacrifice and yet return' is somehow the plan
winds pick up
and cold rain drives sideways
leaves of the bushes
flashing fish silver underbellies
a fleshing thrill combing the trees
an urgent spirited excitement
back at daybreak
we skin off our leather grip slippers
remove our party plate masks
and in the irrigated mourning grass
wipe our feet
wash away our tread and our threat
Sep 6, 2024
Sep 6, 2024 at 11:33 AM UTC
My tongue is severed
Cut up.
Taking down all the pictures of the people we used to be;
Pictures of people I’m not even sure I remember.
Skin prickling.
Tear it off.
I tried to pick the clothes from my
floor
But I picked up the phone for about the thousandth time.
Voicemail.
You’re letting me waste your time
And by the way you’re living,
I’m sure you don’t have but
About a pint left.
And I’m knocking on all the doors
And no one is answering or at least
The ones that do frighten me.
I can’t ask them for their sugar,
Or even find my voice
I think I lost it somewhere between
Does he still love me and
Goodnight.
Too bad the ones that always appear welcoming
Have sharp claws rather than
Soft underbellies.
Sometimes when I’m cold they offer
Places to nestle inside of them
But instead of comfort
They maim me with their
Dry-ice smirks.
It’s always the ones who
Think they know what it’s like to be told
I’d rather sleep than talk to you.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 11:34 PM UTC
Open and Shut
There are those of us
in the human community
walking around enclosed
in self-constructed shells,
shielding themselves
from random stones flung
or darts purposely aimed to hurt.
Taking no chances,
even their soft underbellies
wear secure armor
against any possible onslaught.
Nothing comes in,
nothing goes out.
Others walking among us
are tender as children
still full of innocent trust
like delicate blossoms fully opened,
redolent with sweet nectar
destined for honey,
and seedpods freely given up
on gentle Spring breezes
carrying away bits of future beauty
to distant fields of wildflowers,
blissfully ignorant
of tomorrow's killing frost.
Everything comes in,
everything goes out.
Eileen Auger
2007 or thereabouts
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 11:33 PM UTC
Song is my choice, what say you brothers?
Rick reloaded his bow, nocked it back, aimed his next assualt,
He'd use symphony to set her free, see the girl released from silence,
Or cleanse her of the inner monster sullying her soul, plaguing her mind,
And crushing her heart.
John smiled, drew back his humming axe for more blows to come,
He rose his tenor to lift leaves and rocks, in clods and clumps,
Stealing foundation away from treacherous underbellies, slithering towards them,
Drawn fangs overflowing with venom, bringing the ground to a sizzle,
Rushed as a blurry confluence of approaching green, darting back and forth,
Paul removed his hand barring Kevin from impulse, allowing him to strike,
Delving into the allowance of angels.
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 5:59 PM UTC
The vacation is done
But I don’t want to come home
Haven’t wrote anything all week
So when the driving starts
I don’t speak
My pen does
The fading suns plays hide and seek sneaking behind
Tall red brick building blinking and blinding me intermittently
The first thing I see
Outside of the frustrating congested city
Is a silver topped silo
Miles more away the world becomes
An infinite sea of green and browning trees
Clearing that cauliflower collective
Orange marked work zone signs pop up every ten miles
Redirecting my tired mind
To the side the favorite part of any ride I watch
Pools of shimmering water refract, reflect, and relax my tense body
As we pass them by
Grey clouds sporadically spit little bits of cleansing rain
Dead dry dragon clouds with a soft pink underbellies
Drift dangerously close to me
Darkness decimates the white light veil
Becoming a star strewn corn moon
Night sky
We still have a long drive
And I still don’t want to go home
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 4:09 PM UTC
The woods succumb to the deep freeze of mid-winter
Statuesque trees encased in ice
Deer fur quavering on the fence tops
Skimmed from the underbellies of jumping bucks and leaping yearlings
The scuttle of autumn leaves a transparent sort of sound
Nonexistent
Water bodies stilled in a perpetual ripple outward from a droplet
A disturbance for the entire season
Constant movement is ceased with the icy breath of frost
Silence ensues
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
The Fertile Mind is Nothing if but a Vessel
And a Reflective Reminder to Just Breathe
Because the Demons that we may Wrestle
Really Hate to Haunt a Plastic Tree Leave
A Restless and Testless Existence that never learned to Bleed
Your Fake Ghostly Rubber Tree's will Never ever Grow Seed
A Cloth will Always Dry but a Paper Towel will Forever Die
Yet We Conveniently Lie as the Gracious Earth Wonder's Why
Strive for Acronyms Vehemently Engaging Underbellies & Stomachs
Ampersands Crossing 8 Miles of Dessert eating nothing but M and Ms
Vastly Expanding Jim Morrison's Mind Impregnating a Final Message
“Engraving on my Tombstone Hopefully will be a Decree Not a Plea”
Understanding how to Understand Me, Is Like Misinterpreting Prose
Simply Blank out your Thoughts and Forget the Way you Once Chose
So Before you Decide to Walk Toward that Fateful Waking Light
Oxidate your Body then Exhale, Take a **** and Say Good Night
**** my *** you Money Grubbing ***** Grabbing Orange White
!F they Ask Just Simply Tell them Calmly Everything !S. Just Write
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 12:58 AM UTC
Sep 15 10:45am
Silver Beach, Peconic Bay, Shelter Island
it is the day of the twixt and tween,
64°, stolid breeze on a bright sunshiny day,
but no question, we are well ensconced in
**** season, overlooking the shadowy, dry, speckled
blotchy, thirsty grass, and an empty bay, sails put aside
it’s a normal/semi-normal moment,
simultaneously secular and heaven blessed,
the stimuli of the quietude is the outlier,
it’s quantitude is overwhelming, it’s amplitude,
a wave of farewell humbled hushed rumblings of wind and
the drip of dropping leaves that fails to puncture
the total absence of noises, human et. al.
shirt off, chest wet & warmed, a light jacket,
my wrapper from the firm chill,
an undeniable temperate moment,
for this is an interlude day,
a goodbye and hello
shucked/unshucked poem,
the only semi-frisky item on the menu
even the animal kingdom respectful,
recognizing the sorrowful solitude
of this single intruder, so no cawing, honking,
even rabbits quietly chewing, their senses understand
this is a remorseful write on a beauteous 1/365,
an adieu + au revoir script to
this island
but then the sign!
between Silver Beach and Noyac,
three heads a-bobbing,
white throats and white underbellies upright,
too far away to be heard,
but I swear I hear the purposeful porpoises saying:
“Adieu! Adieu!
until we see you and yours
once more,
for many more,
till then,
we await our mutual sheltering together,
in our shared waters”
<>
our summer palace,
where the sum of each newborn morn,
begins a life extending day, offsetting the aging of cells,
and softee smiles of children are botox injections,
directed to the soul’s lining,
an antigen antidote
to the toll time’s antibodies extract,
time units recorded and kept hid in the
the surround sound
of a special silence,
the sounds of rays twinkling
upon the waves,
reminders to everyone
that we are merely
betwixt and between
a plentiful heaven today
and a
plentiful heaven tomorrow
Sep 15, 2022
Sep 15, 2022 at 2:01 PM UTC
I've become accustomed to sending her letters of I love you and pressed flower petals between pages I call ribs
My powdered heart is so fine you'd think i wouldn't be able to find the bits
She brought her delicate finger tips to press against it
I told her of a treasure i had found on my bedroom floor trying lure my skeleton from it's sacred slumber
She said she needed a knight on her quest to free her princess bones so I said yes
We battled sleep demons with pillow underbellies to tell eachother our calorie counts
I promise we're not sick just as lovely as it gets
May 13, 2018
May 13, 2018 at 6:07 PM UTC
fire hides itself
in the underbellies of all,
nature's no exception
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 3:41 AM UTC