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Joe Cole Dec 2014
I dipped a woodlouse in the ink
I set it on the page
Watched it craft fine works of art
I was stunned, so amazed by the words that flowed
I's and oh's there in repose as that louse moved its feet
None here could write with such delight
Such a one word piece of art
And so I set a color pallete down
Watched it work throughout the night
Oh, oh such a glorious work evolved
Of color tint and hue
A work so crafted, so wonderful
That could be challenged by so few
And upon that work of wonder
A one word poem grew
And all this by a woodlouse
Using six legs instead of two
Such fine and pure art penned for the artless masses who dare to post their purile work here
"Run down the list, if you please."
"OK. Doc, let's start with these:
An earwig with shin splints,
a worm with heartburn,
A cockroach with a cold-"
"He should have wrapped up like he was told!"
"-A bee with hay-fever."
"She never listens either..."
"A centipede with a migraine,
A fly with wing sprain
And a woodlouse with suspected vertigo."
  "Is that them all?"
"Well, no. There's an elderly spider with a blister on his ***. He can't spin a web to build a trap or home.
There is a grub with possible depression,
A slug with a stomach bug
And a ladybird with gout."
  "Too many greenflies, no doubt."
"There's a butterfly with signs of hypochondria due to a swollen antennae,
no matter what I say he's certain he is going to die.
Now, the last is a delicate imposition: the Queen ant wants birth control,
Because she is sick of her pregnant condition."
Alan McClure Apr 2016
I suppose it was
an act of mercy.
"Put him
with the other Earthlings!"
Dragged
down strip-lit corridors
a million miles
from home.

At last
they cast me
in a gloomy cell
with a woodlouse,
a guava
and a chanterelle mushroom.

I appreciated the thought,
but we had little in common
and an awkward silence reigned.
Joe Bradley Aug 2017
The furrows are drying
in a woodlouse summer.
Each quiet year proves
they were inexpertly dug.

Empty eye sockets
the flowerbeds shrivel
and each tulip bulb is just
a useless *******.

Earthworks crumble into riverbanks,
the defective rock
dances bed-ward.
The clay browns the water.

In the dusty corridors of sunlight
we are the balled up
little hedgehog
late for the earthworm

and the screen-saver, bouncing
but never touching the corner.
I’ve sat dumb and still as
words dwindle on a screen.

Somewhere else hands delve
into crowns of sticky, soaked poppy.
Wet and soft they stink
of sugar.

Liberated calves with
liberated hoofs gambol in mud
and rough tongues
curl on apple picking fingers.

Slugs glisten
With fairy-tale arrogance.
Happy and fat in a giant’s
vegetable patch.

Somewhere else the smell of low-tide
isn’t a crusting of salt,
seagulls, ******* and
a reminder of torpid shallows

but profound ovulation.
Nesting puffins, shearwaters,
an ocean view cottage.
Shepard’s peachy sky.

Summer is willing. Keep calm.
Count her freckles.
I’ve walked through the forest
seen hearts in trees.

Bark grows, gold stars roll
and the guileless acolyte,
not hungry but dry
bends over a keyboard

and counts an orchard’s
wealth in slushy apples.
Mud and sand on the carpet.
Eyes sticky and red. Not black.
John Bartholomew Jul 2018
A flitter, a flutter, whats a few quid on a bet
the folly broke its leg on that run, better call that final vet
much like the creature that ran its last race
there are certain things in this life that I cannot face

Her high pitched scream of a laugh is almost a squeal
such a pretty face but her mannerisms and depth I cannot deal
I laughed, tagged along, at first it all seemed so great
but it ends up so weary, solemn yet teary, its day has had its final fate

She had her ups, I had my downs, to be away was my final curtain
had to leave the house, crept to the bookies like a sneaky woodlouse, that divorce was almost certain
but I prefer a bet to her hair, and to always be there, hold the phone, there's a tip at the 3:30 in Ripon
my friends said I must be mad, to leave that beauty, oh so bad, well yes, I must be ****** trippin

But that's life i'm afraid, we all have plans that must be laid, some leading wholly in the wrong direction
she's with some other man now, almost the size of a baby cow, I'm sure their bubba will be perfection

So the bookies it still calls, if its horses to Saturdays goals, those dice will always for me be thrown
for it is what it is, a life as a quiz, what will tomorrow bring, as it really is,

nobody's fault but my own

JJB
Eat your betting money but don't bet your eating money - Anon

The best throw of the dice is to throw them away. –Unknown

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. –Kin Hubbard

A gambler never makes the same mistake twice. It's usually three or more times. –Terrence "VP Pappy" Murphy

I love blackjack. But I'm not addicted to gambling. I'm addicted to sitting in a semi-circle. –Mitch Hedberg (1968-2005)

You know, horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people. –Will Rogers
the wood louse died and feel it was natural not ****** or an accident

a lot of this event here

an old house

feeling sad about it we remembered reading that the energy does not disappear

that it changes form

we smiled when we knew that and placed the tiny body in the compost

later that day we saw art from materials placed in compost

and smiled
Donall Dempsey Feb 2017
AS DEW IN APRYLLE

It is as if
he has fallen

from the end of
the 15th century

into this
present day.

A Friday as it
happens.

And falling from
century to century

he has lost weight
the flesh fallen from him

so that
Simon Sadd

(“Sadd by name…sadd by nature!”)

arrives at this
particular now

nothing but
a bag of bones

with a skin
that no longer fits him.

As if…as if
he had once been a fat man

and Time had
thinned him…tamed him.

And so it is
I bathe him

sing songs for him
recite for him

carols, poems, hymns
anything

that lets him escape
even for a moment

this nursing home.

My voice carries him
back to his Norfolk childhood

where his mother
bathes him

on some forgotten Friday
in the once upon a time.

Soap stings his eyes
then and now.

“Moder ‘ud give us
such a ding on the lug.”

He laughs as if
she were there.

“Cor blarst me...stop yer blarin!
Such a sharmin’!”

he scolds himself
with her voice.

Then she’d hush me with…
“I SYNG OF A MAYDEN”

“I syng of a mayden
þat is makeles,
kyng of alle kynges
to here sone che ches.”

I finish it for him.

“My heart alive…how does
a yung feller like you…no dat!”

  
“He came also stylle
þer his moder was
as dew in aprylle,
þat fallyt on þe gras.”

“You must have high learnin’
bor!”

He, for his part,
creates a world of words.

I enter entranced
into his voice

where a ladybird
transforms itself into

a bishy barneybee!

A woodlouse
becomes a Charley pig.

A jasper
is a wasp.

“Ahhh look a King Harry
by the Lady’s smock!”

And when I look
the goldfinch has

already flown away
into the lost years.

The Canterberry Bells
still…so still

“…as dew in Aprylle.”

His mind a “bishy bishy
barneybee…”

“When will yer weddin’ be?
he says softly to himself

“If it be a ‘marra day..."
I towel him dry.

“Tairk yer wings an’
floi away!”
I SING OF A MAYDEN

I syng of a mayden
þat is makeles,
kyng of alle kynges
to here sone che ches.  

He came also stylle
þer his moder was
as dew in aprylle,
þat fallyt on þe gras.

He cam also stylle
to his moderes bowr
as dew in aprille,
þat fallyt on þe flour.  

He cam also stylle
þer his moder lay
as dew in Aprille,
þat fallyt on þe spray.;  

Moder & mayden
was neuer non but che –
wel may swych a lady
Godes moder be.

***

I SING OF A MAIDEN

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless,
King of all Kings
For her son she chose

He came as still
where his mother was
As dew in April
That falls on the grass

He came as still
To his mother’s bower
As dew in April
That falls on the flower.

He came as still
Where his mother lay
As dew in April
That falls on the spray

Mother and maiden
There was never, ever one but she;
Well may such a lady
God’s mother be

***

Some nice Norfolk words!

bred and born  - instead of "born and bred"

Bishy-barney-bee  -  ladybird

Bor  - friend/boy...pronounced Buh!

Burr -  haze around the moon

charleypig/barneypig  - wood louse

Coshies/cushies   -  sweets

Cuckoo  -   cocoa

Dudder    -  shiver yet shiver for a splinter

Ding   -  sharp blow

Dickey   -  donkey

Dockey  -    a labourer’s dinner

Dodman/dundmun/doderman   -  snail

Duzzy  -  silly

Erriwiggle   -  earwig

fillum    -  film or movie

fumble-******   -  clumsy

gansey   -  jersey

Garp/gorp   -  gape

Co ter heck  - go to hell as in amazement

guzunder  - goes-under...another word for chamber-***

Hedge Betty   -  hedge sparrow

High learned  -  well-educated, clever

Hold yew hard ! -  Hang on there! or Wait a moment!

harnser  - heron or a goose for which the Latin name is Anser

hoddy-doddy (very small)

jiffle   -  fidget

kewter  -  money

King Harry   -  goldfinch

Lady’s smock   -  Canterbury bell

Mardle   -  gossip

mawkin   -  a scarecrow

Muckwash  -  sweat a lot

My heart alive! (expression of surprise or just "my heart"

occard   - awkward

"Oi hent nart gart none",  - "I haven't got any".

Pingle   -  play with your food

Pishamire  -  an ant

Pollywiggle   -  a tadpole

puckaterry   - stress/panic

Quackle  -   to strangle

Rafty   -  damp raw weather

Rimer  -  **** frost

Shiver   -  splinter

skerrick   -  a morsel of food

Smur   -  fine rain drizzle

snob   -  shoemaker

squit   -  nonsense

stannicle   -  tadpole

tempest   -  thunderstorm

"The Fenians are coming!"  - a  commotion nearby.

tittermatorter  -   see-saw

*****-totty   -  very small
jay cleeve Jul 2017
Tainted worlds within the grass
A river forms from a fallen glass
A mountain grows from a moles quick gaze of light
An ice lolly falls to the ants delight
****** flows from the cigarettes thrown alight
Spilt beer for a honey bee to drunk to find his tree
A foot to the floor destroys a woodlouse city
But no hairless apes care or pity
Giants in a world that isn't ours
Driving our nature killing cars
Fumes that **** a thousand trees
That didn't get to grow their leaves
But to die and return to earth
That's what all that live and breath deserve
Lay me on the cold dark earth
Let me fertilize the turf
Recycle new rebirth
A whisp
An influx of magic
Delicate Eclipse
Delicious suspicious
The sky delivers
Satsuma shades
Epiphanies I'm in a haze
Symphonies that quickly fade
I want to dissolve in it
Till my body mimics
 The horizons gimics
Atomic with mandatory beauty
A sovereign sonnet
You
Who follow the feral ones
Come be tiny
In my woodlouse house
Hollow wigwam
Love and swamp spit
Sawdust sweat
a spooky
Daydream pit
I live in as a
Spluttering sprite
Harboured by delight
I've got ideas in my head of who I want to be
I never take the time to frequently be me
move through time like I cant ke3p up
Constantly nostalgic
For three months ago
SAD cripples me but the sun peeps its head and I long to hibernate still
S R Mats Nov 2023
A woodlouse strolling
The spider watches from strands
Vibrations are gone
Zywa Sep 2020
I am not awake,

still hiding in my nightmare –


just like a woodlouse.
“Die Verwandlung” (“The Metamorphosis”, 1915, Franz Kafka)

“De thigmofiel – Het verlangen naar geborgenheid” (“The thigmophile – The longing for comfort”, 2015, Midas Dekkers)

Collection "Home sea"

— The End —