Best Clammy Poems
Remember that time
Oh that smile
that beautiful smile
that little playful smirk
tugging at my shirt
waiting for me to ask you to dance
That little blue skirt
Cashmere sweater
Your cheeks, bright red rouge
batting your long silk eyelashes at me
You were a flirt
Remember that time
My hands so clammy
My heart a flutter
Finally asking you to dance
You took my hand
Squeezing so tight
Oh you were the perfect sight
How can I not remember
or can I ever forget
that midnight blue polo shirt
and that baseball hat
It seems not long ago
I wore flowers in my hair
Ahh, that lavender breeze
Close by, a carousel
You raised your brow many a time
I swear I caught you stare
It seems not long ago
but it's been thirty years or so
when your steady hand
got hold of my own
And i never let it go
I can still recall that winsome grin
and butterflies churning within
You asked me if I wanted to dance
Stole my heart away
and put me in a trance
It seems not long ago
but its been thirty years or so
Your tremerous hand got hold of my own
and I never let it go, no i never let it go
Peekaboo
I see you
But you do not see me
Clammy sweat
Palms get wet
You want to run, be free
Shiver, shake
Wide eyes make
You give a stiffled scream
Unclear doubt
What's about
Feel's like horrible dream
Heartbeats race
You hide face
You can't this torture bear
Close behind
Me you'll find
You know my name as Fear
You can't see
Wicked me
But Fear is always near!
~ 29 Apr 2016~
Contest Sponsored by SKAT A
Being invisible #2 - Poetry Contest
Note:
Fear is the companion of everybody. Silient, irrational, omnipresent, and INVISIBLE. Fear always lurks around the corner, it is invisible and strikes one suddenly. It is diffiult to come to terms with it let alone recognise it. The scream of the drowning person, or the suffocating feeling or terror of a phobia, are all manifestations of FEAR - once you face it, it vanishes!
From a mouthful of this morning’s eggs,
I pull bits of char from yesterday’s breakfast.
‘I had no chance to scrub the pan’, I plea with myself-
But I still smash it over my skull
like a cartoon.
Every morning I wake up
feeling last night’s feelings,
thinking last night’s thoughts,
about what’s happening 10 years ago,
and what happened tomorrow.
If you add up every
simultaneous
suffocating
moment
I fight through-
just to say:
‘i love you’
It would stretch for longer than I’ve known you,
which is longer than I’ve been alive.
There was no ‘today’ in my broken egg.
No difference between coming or going,
to an automaton in purgatory
who saw life through the pinhole eyes
of a cardboard mask won at a birthday party
I never asked for.
The sky looked like the ceiling of a small, dark closet.
and flowers looked like plastic bargain bin decor
coated in lead paint, the kind left on roadside graves.
I used to count those as a child,
on the way to destinations
I still dread my arrival to.
If I were brave enough to show you my awe and my terror
of loving the one who revealed
the world as something real, all this time-
I would sink face down in dirty bathwater
choking on wet, laughing sobs
until my fingerprints wrinkled away
and tear at my clammy skin
until my soft nails bent backward
and paint red bruises all over my trembling body
that would spell out a primitive language
neither of us had the chance to learn.
This is my best guess:
‘i am just a bad thing that happened
a book of false memories and blind feelings.
You are a very fast reader,
You’ll soon reach the end of me.’
I remember drawing a map in crayon
of every ditch I saw myself lying in
strange, unnatural positions.
Like I'd been struck by a car,
and someone shoved my body away
so I wouldn’t mess up the next one.
Fire and ice fill these veins, dreams
are no longer sufficient to quell the
turbulent tides that quarrel within.
Deep within butterflies dance out
of sync, and the heartstrings await
the magical fingers of the harpist.
Solitudes aura is cold and clammy,
there is a dark side to this loneliness
that I cannot comprehend, it leaves
me wanting. This lonely castle wall
where so many poets have cast their
words, thrown their hearts to a new
horizon or a setting sun, is where I
await the tide that brings you forth.
For I know you are real, we have
touched in another time, drank the
wine, made love, danced the dark
hours in passion. Dim my vision
since you waltzed these eyes, my
Queen come to me, come with
haste, fill these arms, fill this
heart, kindle the fires and melt
the ice. Bring me stars , bring me
paradise, give me lips as soft as
snow, give to me your love and
these castle walls would crumble
before your smile. Patiently I
stand these walls, scanning the
seas for that sail that conveys our
union, lonely but so in love.
With beating heart and dragging feet this dark and soulful night
I stealthily tiptoe past her window hoping - not to see her light
But bathed in luminosity she sits there in full view
My hands go clammy yet again knowing not what to do
My very own neighbour stalking me totally blows my mind
Blatant betrayal of trust is not what I expected to find
This person I befriended and in all innocence confided
Her skewed level taken is so atrociously misguided
Why did it go so horribly wrong - maybe I'm to blame?
When did I notice that it had gone way beyond a game?
It was when she started slipping notes underneath my door
Saying she was worried senseless - and couldn’t sleep before
I got home safely - it was fine - and know that she would wait
She loved me and worried that I was coming home so late
This declaration of love albeit sweet makes my skin start to crawl
I should call security to have them a special alarm install
At the door of my porch once again I find a single stem red rose
Bringing perturbations and shallow breath as this agitation grows
A fleeting shred of courage for confrontation I do seek
But just the thought of facing her sends a knocking to my knees
One day it all comes tumbling down when my girlfriend breaks my heart
Waves of sorrow wash over me when I see my love depart
Love is such a fleeting thing and my soul weeps from deep within
Scandalous thoughts I do harbor - of granting my stalker in
Tie the wedding knot - make it taut - cater to our every whim
And into her arms some comfort seek - would it be such a sin?
~ Placed First in Contest~
Contest Entry for ‘STALKER’ -
Sponsored by Silent One -
17th November 2017
Music – ‘Stalker’ by Goldfinger
1#
Brewed tea
Wife and myself
Nothing between us
2#
He was metamorphosed
Into a frog
When his wife had left him
3#
I needed
A lonely woman
Thousand years back
4#
She shivered
In yellow sun
Struck by her coyness
5#
God travels
With three suitcases
One for me
6#
I kissed
Her frostiness
And my lips turned icebergs
7#
The bed
Gets embarrassed
At our nakedness
8#
Her hands
Stopped me
To pick evenings
9#
We two rested
In a cave of Kundalini
Behind the waterfall
10#
The alien woman
Travelled six moons
To deliver her baby in a burial ground
11#
An eagle swoops
On a field –mouse
Tables of wedding
12#
The woman kissed me
I felt her hollow ribs
As if in a spring dream
13#
The woman’s hair
Struck by a gale
Made waterfalls
14#
My wife locked
Me one fine evening
In my neighbour’s hole
15#
The rats are away
When mice take in
My wife’s clammy face
16#
The summer rain
In exasperation
Took wings to raid the moon
17#
Lolo my wife
Her green sleek steps
Thundered an innocent fly
18#
In the dead of night
God made two wives
One for me one for my neighbour
19#
My neighbour’s wife
Delivered a child
When I was asleep
20#
The woman said goodbye
And I took a fish for dinner
I mistook it for my wife
21#
My wife is a canvas
Where I paint
My forebodings
22#
A painter’s apprentice
In sheer foolishness
daubed in red my wife’s rear-view
23#
A squirrel saw my wife
And in haste
Lost her guava
24#
I was caught in neighbour’s bedroom
By my wife last summer
I lost my glasses
25#
A wolf entered the graveyard
Unannounced
And annoyed my wife
26#
Sarah my wife
Lumbering
Dizzy commuters
27#
Sarah wed me
And in brief forgetfulness
Greeted my neighbour
28#
A tiger ate Sarah my wife
It happened by accident
The tiger knows
29#
Morning bell
Wake up call
I want to sleep
30#
Pola my pet fly
Fouled things up
She ate my wife’s breakfast
31#
My dog Pintu
Hydrophobia
I set him free on my wife’s posterior
32#
Eons ago a butterfly
Gave birth to my wife
Now, a caterpillar
33#
A hard slap
Stammering
Hurricane Sarah will win
34#
You have gathered enough winters
Woman sighs
Leave one for me
35#
The woman flapped her wings
To clouded mountaintops
Silky as white
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My husband... has never minded
eating a vegetable he doesn't like
just so they will eat theirs...
Or eating half smashed, soggy potato chips
out of clammy little hands,
when they've decided they would like to share...
He's fine... letting them play hairdresser...
sitting patiently, while they curl his hair,
He will play Old Maid, pretending to have a sour face...
all the while letting them win
He doesn't mind drinking muddy looking tea
from a tiny little cup, that is too small for his fingers
Or sitting out in the blazing sun
on a hot summer afternoon
watching them stay cool, as they frolic in the sprinklers
He shows excitement
over a Popsicle stick
glued onto cardboard,
and tied with a bow....
exclaiming it to be his favorite birthday gift...
He doesn't mind taking them up and down the aisles of Wal Mart
for an hour, while they decide how to spend their dollar
He would rather spend his day playing hopscotch
than a round of golf
He's their Grandpa.........
Just one more reason why I love him
________________________________________________________
"A Good Man" Contest
Sponsor: Lewis Rayne
Burgundy and scented candles
dinner at eight
pacing with clammy hands
she is running late.
She usually does
arriving bathed in candlelight
always the muse
capturing the essence of night.
I let her sip from my glass
the wine was for me
the room becomes a spinning world
of forests, castles, clifftops and restless sea.
Promises are spoken like shooting stars
falling to earth upon our lips as kisses
romance by scent and touch brings such wonder
like a verb dancing in the center of a noun.
Some nights I have this dream
that she writes of me in prose
sitting on her bed with writer's hands
on pages on which the torchlight glows.
Perhaps next time we'll picnic in a park
even if it's a moonless night
I'll bring a glass jar full of lightening bugs
to provide us with a romantic torchlight...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Trembling in my bed tonight
I cannot close my eyes
The movie on the late, late show
Says everybody dies
Now some say I'm a scaredy cat
But tonight is Halloween
What if someone kidnaps me,
And tries to eat my spleen?
I know there's no great pumpkin
Okay, maybe there is
What if he puts a spell on me,
And tries to make me his?
And I think that there's a monster
Who lives beneath my bed
I shiver and shake and stay awake
With covers over my head
There's something outside my window
And shadows on my wall
I think I hear some rattling chains
From the ghosts that's in the hall
Right then I hear this eerie voice
And feel this clammy hand
My wife says, "Hush and go to sleep,
You're supposed to be a man"
The last Night of October
It's that time, again, the last night of October,
the last glow of twilight nearly gone.
Children race out and about,
winding through the streets and alleys.
Brightly colored costumes,
mom's old wig, dad's old sport coat.
All hoping to fill their bags with the prize:
Candy bars, bag of licorice, candy corn, pop corn balls,
apples, Bit-O-Honey, and Pez dispensed joy.
Some, their favorites, to greedily keep their own,
others to give to a poor sibling, who stayed home with the mumps.
With faces painted, steel themselves, for the gauntlet ahead,
the familiar street now somehow strange in the gloom,
to walk past hallowed ground,
All was quiet, save for the rustling of the leaves.
The daylight gone, now cloaked in Stygian darkness..,
ahead lie, the old grave yard.
Raucous laughter, which echoed only moments before,
trailed off into whispered murmurs.
All eyes from the once merry band looked now,
to their leader, albeit quickly chosen,
the tallest, and oldest, and bravest.
He too, resolve waning, felt the grip of those things unknown,
in the shadowy mist,
heart now beating faster, he chides the little ones,
for being such silly ninnies.
Just now, what was that! What was that sound?!?
Was that an owl? Or, maybe Old Man Godfrey, come back from his
now disturbed rest!
Young sister's hands clasped brother's, tightly,
and brother's, impishly taking the clammy worts,
decidedly grew, just a bit older, wiser,
and braver in kind.
Now turning the corner at Elm street, they walked at even pace.
With heads bowed low, mid-block, each chanced a glance, only to look away,
from the wrought iron gate.
Young heads, did now envision mystic spectres, ghouls and fantastic phantoms, with jaws agape, smiling in toothy cheer, bony fingered hands reaching through the heavy bars.
Swallowing dryly, daring just one quick glance back,
at the narrow lane winding, into the stone covered grounds,
dotted with ivy covered trees of willow and oak.
Back into the world of the living, back to
All Hallow's Eve.
-Happy Halloween
Rain slipped in
sliding on the din
just passed dark
came midnight sparks
before the light of morning sun,
spits and spats, tips and taps,
lulls and dulls,
sputtered mutters culls,
on the shutters closed,
clammy, dank, and damp,
click-clack, stamped,
pitter-patter tones,
on the walk path stones;
soft and harsh,
wind blowing scowls along the tarps
glistening glows
misting the grassy rows,
October doom looms,
harvests wells consumed
rain falls
as autumn calls.
INDIAN PIPE
(The Corpse Plant)
in the shadows
in the shadows
teardrop eyes
Like bagpipes they play, somber tunes of fear,
as doves do weep, as flamingoes bow down.
A ghost plant dirge, doth tremble dusty clouds.
The bells, they ring, intensely sing, slow-deep.
in the shadows
in the shadows
teardrop eyes
Like wax, their silhouettes a frozen mask.
A countenance, thus drained of chlorophyll.
The vampiric cold parasite craves night -
A leech, among the beech, with lovers scars.
in the shadows
in the shadows
teardrop eyes
A cold and clammy touch, doth turn a corpse
an inky black. A translucent pale ghost -
don’t touch, nor handle plant, nor creep too near
its eerie soil, nor step, upon its grave.
in the shadows
in the shadows
teardrop eyes
Original date : 5/11/2017
YOUR CHOICE FLOWER VERSE,any form ,any theme Poetry Contest
Brian Strand: Sponsor 6/23/2019
Through eldritch streets I walked alone
With shadows on my track,
Full jellied was my every bone,
I thought my mind would crack.
Through mist and morbid mire I went
To revel where gargoyles dwell,
A guest whose soul was spent,
To meet the host - the King of Hell!
Through caverns dark I made my way,
The squelch of shoe, the crack of bone,
Chittering squeaks from shadowy grays,
Would never leave me alone.
At last I reached the caverned maw,
Ceiling glint with stalactites,
And of course its bretheren I saw,
The saber-toothed stalagmites.
And on the high-domed hellish lair
Hung a grinning crystal skull,
It threw a ghoulish, greening glare
Which made my senses dull.
All around there was a damp,
A noxious putrid smell,
And slightly a-centre on a ramp,
Stood grinning the Lord of Hell.
His feet were hooved, his head was horned,
He flashed his fang-like teeth.
His eyes were huge and darkly burned;
Heart stopped, I could hardly breathe!
"Welcome", boomed my infernal host,
And flashed a rotting smile,
"A welcome drink, a one-time toast,
Before you join my rank and file!"
Something clammy seized my mind,
My clothes turned very wet,
I screamed and woke myself to find
I wasn't dead as yet.
But close to it I surely was,
My narco-ed mind amid I had lain,
At hell's door without a fuss,
When with maddened mind I'd cut my vein!
He goes by the name of Lacrimosa
He is the plain picture of a man
Those who don’t know him see him as a monster
But you and I know better that he is a broken friend
His smile drips of sorrow
His walk is that of a footless ghost
And should you accept his outstretched hand
And succumb to the adoring nature of his gaze
He will lead you away to a dreary place
That he calls home
And the monster will sing sweet nothings to you
And hold you safely in his arms
And though the smile on his orchid face may weep for you
Do not be ungrateful, as it is for you
You can shudder and shake and claw to get away
But you need him as much as he needs you
This puppet man who hangs from a single string
Neck crooked and marbled and hanging to the side
Will frighten and disturb those who can’t see his face
But he will protect you from the ones who claim to love you dear
He’ll hold you close and wherever you go
He’ll be there by your side, his cold hand grasping your own
He’ll be everything you need so you’ll never be alone
He’ll share with you his tears and guilt and blame
And for these gifts he asks nothing in return
But your companionship and smile for only a small time
He knows you cannot stay forever by his side
So when you’re ready to say goodbye
He’ll let you go
And he’ll insist that you keep his gifts
But in time you may throw them away
And turn your back on the weeping thing
Who gave all he had in your time of need
And let his crying fade away
But don’t look back or you’ll see him there
Extending his hand, begging to hold you in his arms once more
And should you choose to return to him
He will always welcome you
And make a place for you by his side
And one day you may decide
To snuff out the man on a string
To throw the gifts he gave back in his blotched, orchid face
And run far far away
So that never again will you see his smile so grayed
Or feel the icy sting of his clammy embrace
Never again will you sigh in the arms of a love once held dearer
Now burdened whenever they look in the mirror
With the image of what they at one time feared
Of a sad smile painted on the picture of a man
Neck crooked and marbled and hung by a string
Dangling a smile loose to the side
Tears scarring his cheeks
His arms open wide
A monster posing as a broken friend
Who goes by the name of Lacrimosa
The fog frolicked in the hollow
Danced upon the verdant grass
Reached down to kiss sleeping leaves
Before its time to pass
Laughter echoed from the woods afar
Wildlife playing steel guitars
Birds sang a tune to blended keys
Their music a groov'n jar
The sun through the haze tops the pines
Fog has settled entertwined
Stillness prevails quiet disturbed
By manmade motors fine
The radiant beams of morn's sun
Filters through fogs clammy gray
Soon the heat will fill the moist air
The poet's night turns to day