Best Ankle Poems
I took off my shoes
and stood ankle deep
in the shallow reach and run
of the waves. I felt a sudden
cold, the slow sink of my feet
into wet sand, the gentle pull
of the outgoing tide,
then a tickle of seaweed
as it tangled around my shin.
There are moments like this
when you become the sum
of your own sensations.
The world was being taken in
through my feet, sipped joyously
as if each nerve was savoring
whatever came in contact
with my skin. It was electric.
I was motion, the deep throb
of breaking waves finding
a resonance, a seashell
imprinting an image of itself
through my heel, the freedom
of wiggling toes. I felt as if
I was being lifted
by a strange buoyancy until
the cold spread its numbing chill
and I stepped out of the water
back into my shoes,
into my own small footprint.
My heart drops
at ankle bites
Aren’t we all a part of human-kind…
Kindle kindness
The human race…embrace
Poli-ticking bombs, , ,
b r e a t h e…
Play ping-pong
d i s c u s s
Don’t be a ding-dong,
shrieking bell
We aren’t all right,
or wrong.
Hate religion…okay,
but it is okay
that some are religious…
don’t a b u s e them
We a l l have beliefs.
Depending on where your heart is,
is where your issue is -
not nearly everyone
is on the same page,
but be
k i n d -
like a gentle wind
Don’t be
over-ripe -
don’t let your words ripple
like whips, tearing others apart.
Love thy neighbor
kiss their hands & feet, metaphorically;
kiss each cheek
no pain
no gain
totally true
but what happens when your hurt all the time?
sprained wrist
sprained ankle
soon i'll brake it
and i'll feel a diffrent pain
one of these days
Alone, aging actor alive after abuse.
Adult adept, adapt action above acute ankle.
Admit ached, agree affix aptly crepe.
Ashen apres, amigo angry apart afore.
Asked aloof aunty avoid awful baloo.
Alarm nurse ahead, agony alert.
Aggro afoot...adios amigo.
The Sound of Distant Ankle Bells
Memories of those delicate tinkling bells,
casually fastened around calloused feet,
take hold of my waking moments,
and fling my thoughts back to a distant time,
where folk-songs were heartily sung,
joyful, yet hopelessly out of rhyme.
I barely saw her, a construction labourer perhaps,
hauling bricks, cement, anything, on a scorching Delhi day,
while in the semi-shade of a Gulmohar tree, her infant silently lay.
A cacophony of thoughts such as these swirl around,
yanking me away from the now, to my cow-dung littered childhood playground.
Now, a lifetime of displacement has hushed the jangling chorus of the past,
to a faint trickle of sounds, as distant as an ocean heard inside tiny sea-shells,
and,
I know, that the orchestral nostalgic crescendo, rises, dips, and swells,
as tantalisingly near, yet a world of time away, as were the tinkling of her ankle-bells.
My cousin is wearing an ankle bracelet because he got in trouble with the police.
He's always getting himself in trouble, his mischievousness will never cease.
He was given the ankle monitor and placed under house arrest.
Just thinking about his situation is enough to make a person depressed.
Don't be like my cousin, never commit a crime.
Because if you do, you'll end up doing time.
(This is a true story.)
Writhing and slithering, enters a hissing snake.
What a foolish court jester he would make.
Belles on his toes, an attitude of 'up your nose.'
No warning is needed when he creeps around.
His strikes aren't lethal from on the ground.
Yet, he tries to bite ankles... what a joke.
He's a belly crawler, an odious sidewinder,
a cracked egghead with a rotten yolk,
but believes himself to be a devilish bloke.
A real 'snake-in-the-grass,' and a faultfinder.
A dancing monkey working for an organ grinder.
Shaking his rattles, he's poised for a fight,
but doesn't see the folly of his plight!
Acting like a dragon, safe inside his lair,
breathing fire in vile words. He likes to swear.
Like a pig, he wallows in dirt and squeals.
Similar slimy creatures... snakes and eels.
It's time to get back inside his box. Jack
is a wind-up toy, a little boy blue, a quack
who likes to toot his own horn. Forlorn and lost,
acting like a know-it-all, the boss.
Let him try to swallow a frog as it sits on a log.
Doesn't he know frogs can leap and hop?
Let him open his big mouth like a python with teeth.
Under its breath, that frog calls him a sop.
It will laugh at his antics and call him an ape.
Catch a monkey by his tail and listen to him wail.
Maybe he's a dog who likes to chew on a bone.
Then whimper, sigh, curse and groan
when a little ol' flea takes a bite of his flesh.
I have been here waiting for you
ankle deep in the salty sea
surrendering away my pride as I gaze into
the spent promises that lap at my ankles.
waves created from the shipwrecked dreams
of what we wished we would be.
life's luxuries picked at by ever present seagulls;
the true connoisseurs of what sinks or swims
the tides and currents of our bodies,
once anchored in the
sound and mind for the
sailor and his mermaid song,
now a voiceless sextet held by
a blind man
who can see it all.
a multitude of minnows
searching for a suitable wardrobe,
waterproof against the hooks and sinkers
of love and the net of deception,
spawned from within the kingdom of the deep
it all seems to me
I swam upstream in vain
to you to be with…you to be yours.
naked truths have barbs
that are hard to swallow
you have changed my life forever
you are never to return are you
I have been here waiting for you
IRISH
Clink-clink
Black panther eyes peering
thru the concrete canopy
What do they see in the blood-smoke midnight air ...
safari sound waves shocking,
moving the ghetto leaves
What do the tree leopard tar-pitch, onyx ears hear ...
a white rhino with a little horn tooting
Bars and Stripes liberty hypocrisy
Star Spangled dirge played off-key at the trade fair
Clink-clink
Sea Leviathan white whale with the little blowhole,
sending suffocating sounds
leading down to the burning belly of hell
Muzzled lions and lionesses in the dark cargo hold,
chained to the smell drowns
of fear excrement waist-high in a caged cell
400-year journey on a piss-poor promise of equality —
build the racial Wall higher:
says the Tower barker, spitting in the tiny trumpet
Clink-clink
Gold-plated iron ankle bracelets ... slavery jewelry,
place a bid to the auction buyer
Give the seller a pound of the flesh, free-labor sweat
Clink-clink
Don’t think ... run when you hear this
coming calamity chain-pain sound
Head skin deeper into the safe urban jungle,
until the little horn fades
into muted white noise background
I twisted an ankle
On a word,
One I used,
Not one I heard...
The pain rose straight up
the spine
Because that foolish word
was solely mine
When brain and mouth
Of two different a land
Stangers to the other
Cover my mouth with my hand...
I twisted an ankle
I hurt someone
Oh, foolish man
What have you done?
The Showing of The Ankle
Now dashing Sir Giles was a smarmy old geezer
Bold with the women, he knew how to please ‘em
Money no probs and endowed with good looks
It was easy to get into ladies good books
He cast his sights on one such maiden
Her fair curly hair was heavily laden
Her cheeks were like rose petals, soft and pink
Lips like moist cherries ready to pick
He decided to ask if she fancied a stroll
She nodded assent and put on her shawl
The day was windy, her dress was billowy
She succumbed to his charm with tresses flyaway
A look of coyness encouraged his ardor
He couldn’t wait to get her back to his parlor
The path was uneven and hard to traverse
Poor Nancy wore shoes unfit for the course
With fine strong hands he steadied her gait
A freak gust of wind caused her frock to inflate
She shrieked and screamed but it was much too late
To keep the dress in check, instead it flew up
Her rosy cheeks now a reddish pulp
He gasped in horror, she looked a real sight
His beautiful Nancy now not a delight
The hem of the skirt was right round her waist
Her frilly bloomers were not to his taste
But worse he saw her ankles and legs
Mottled with veins, ungainly old pegs
Like trunks and all covered with hair
Nancy looked down and started to stare
At the feet of Sir Giles which made him glare
He’d forgotten his socks, it was plain to see
She started to titter with excited glee
At the finest ankles she had ever beheld
Eyes affixed she continued to marvel
The man with (not from) fine ankle in view
To show one’s ankle was indeed taboo
When I was a teen, an ankle chain
Was given by one ready
To show the world that as a couple,
They were “going steady.”
It often came in gold, with hearts
On which one could engrave
The sweethearts’ names, a token meant
To cherish and to save.
I never had one then but now
My ankle always sports
A bracelet (never made of gold);
I purchase varied sorts.
A few are made of beads and one
Boasts tiny chiming bells.
I buy them for myself
When opportunity compels.
The only signal they give off,
Unlike my teenage years,
Is that the wearer (me!) enjoys
The way each one appears.
Hello young man! I surely have heard a lot about you.
I drove here as soon as I heard the news,
And I’ve something to say if you can excuse.
God gave a bird in my nest, we call her Steffy.
She grew up fair, slim, silent but was obtuse sometimes.
Nothing made her happier than the pair of ankle bells.
She wore it like Kumudini and let her feet dwell.
Day and night she stomped her feet until the floor sing.
Everything was fine until the tables turned and fate blink,
She lost her mother.
She needed a blanket as these winds blew chill,
A mother in her father and make her life still.
While she was sinking in the ocean like black granules,
I rafted and drown myself in my Jack Daniels.
She wore ankle bells and dance to live again.
But her efforts to take my booze away were all in vein
One day she came from the school looking for her happiness.
And she found nothing but the loneliness again.
For my booze I’d her ankle bells pawn,
Shattered by this, by morning my bird had flown.
“Steffy never mentioned about her childhood and now
I know why”, saying this young man made a way for me
So I can see her the last time.
Drenched in sorrow I move towards her coffin,
And touched her feet that where as hard as dolphin.
With the tears coming from my mangled shell,
I slowly kept inside the coffin, her pair of ankle bells…
- Kunal Rathod
A tribute to all dancers. :)
This morning chilled me to the bone,
For frost had crazed my window panes
'Twas hard to leave my cosy home,
For given choice I would remain.
But no, there's pennies to be earned
For what in life is ever free,
So into winter's arms I turned,
To face grey skies and misery.
But I found to my surprise,
My street was deep in virgin snow,
Falling from a pearl white sky
To decorate the land below.
Such childish pleasure did I take
As I stepped in, ankle deep,
It brought a smile to my face,
To feel the crump, beneath my feet.
Entry for
EARLY DECEMBER 2018,ANY FORM,ANY THEME,
UP TO A MAX OF 20 lines Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand.
3/12/18. Placed =1st.
And the night I wade ankle deep
in stars, and moon dusts caressing
fall. Bespoke in the cloak of your
eternal love, these footsteps of
passion and desire are easily
made. And to my side you I
whisper with words so sincere,
words so delicate, for only you to
hear. Answer me with open arms,
before the fated dawn, that I may
take of you and your heart adorn.