Best Fibrous Poems
Come gently like a winding trellis
stroking my shape as you fondle
my vulnerability, and tease,
tease curves of my spine with whispers
to unleash what is half-awake in my eyes,
draping my flesh with the scent
of this moistened night…
And I am lost among fibrous roots
clinging to a warm pistil
like a raging dart,a moonlit flame.
Your bended arms warmly mount
my transparent skin,
only to hold back as the dizzy air
blows these ruffled tresses
smelling of earth and jasmine...
You gaze at the cleavage
of an open mouth, wandering
on a tight pulse between
the trellis of desire...how in this
hungry glow, I cannot explain why
your irises slay me bare;
that on a sweltering duskfall
so mysteriously anonymous,
I seem to ask you to come gently
and touch my waiting steam.
Contest of Lewis Raynes That Is Sexy
6/22/2016
This time around, I will not scatter these grains
to land where the weeds might choke them.
This time around, I will collect these kernels
and take them to the gristmill in my head
to crack under all that weight and break free…
Turning while the other is static
Between these stones lay our thoughts—
(the bran, the germ, the endosperm)
Fibrous fertility re(de)fined.
Crushing each layer to smithereens
Grinding and grinding, round and round
Negligent space between these stones
‘til I can think no more.
I gather my bushel of milled thoughts (ground yet still whole),
add some yeast, sugar and water.
We rest and we rise,
we take the punches and fall,
but we embrace the heat and rise again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---I smile as I bite into my warm, buttered pan de sal
mesmerized by the sun, glowing in the east...
06042018
The bed offers cold
where you used to lie
a chill that lingers
when dawn paints the sky.
Your abandoned chair
across from mine
is a constant reproach
and an unwelcome sign
of a love that died.
On outings with friends
I feel their pity
though I wear my best mask
and try to be witty.
The places I visit
are different and yet
something always reminds me
won’t let me forget
the love that died.
Time has its way with all wounds
I've discovered
granting healing to some
letting Death cure the others.
And with every new wound
the scar tissue spreads,
fibrous and nerveless,
‘til sensation is dead.
And it’s hard to say
if I fear this or not
maybe this ether
is what I have sought
all along.
Dawn, when silence falters
And the trees of the range-
Are tucked in a bucket of fog
Marching dawn, whose beauty never alters,
I tuck myself in blankets like a log
At the Treetops Hotel upon the range
Dainty dreams upon dawn’s altar
The dappled peacock dazes the dawn
While the African crowned eagle
Will soar, prowling for prey
And tourists peep and picture the fawn
While their eyes prowl the breakfast tray
Jacaranda festooned fashion regal
Its blue flowers blue snowfall upon dawn
Elephants trudge to the watering hole
Buffalo follow, even the bush buck
The warthog always walks silly,
The big five will steal your soul
At the Ark's perch, you will be stuck
The water adorned by the pond lily
The range's serenity, waters your soul
Pristine streams gush from the moorlands
The Hagenia, decked in velvet green
The sword lily, sheathed in fibrous tunic
And as the Karuru falls hit land
True love will pierce to the gene
For pristine nature, is the true cupid.
Breaths bated as lovers hold hand
Further, nestled nigh in the blue skies
The Kinangop peak, peeking through
The closer I get, the further it hides
A sun bird chatters, along my trail's high
My eyes in tune, such wondrous hillsides
I sweat as I head towards the bamboo
I am among the butterflies
Ringlets in a dance, oh! Surreal world
Monkeys swing, tree to tree, a trail of imagination
A reed buck is openly grazing
A canvas of the grassland in its gold
I spot a Serval cat, in hiding
On a safari truck, the breeze is an inspiration
Beauty flows in the altitudes that I behold
At dusk the steeped villages prepare for sleep
The Nyandarua range, yawns its last
Fabled home of the Kikuyu god
Curtain like shadows befall the steep
And this wonderland begins to nod
As the women fluff off days dust fast
Men’s ears wide open as it darkens deep
Wild animals are known to visit
Roving around, excitement for the young
But the animals are known to visit hungry
The locals know too well, memories vivid
An elephant’s wrath is meted out bluntly
Protection for man and beast not far flung
Conservation and nurture is the spirit
As Mount Satima watches her watered floors,
She knows the heart goes deep
Collaboration with njeri hunjeri who is a wonderful poet
The harbor gave a dim illumination,
lampposts vaguely penetrating the dark water.
As waves like shades of wine drowned the jagged shore of stone,
I watched a fibrous complexion of steel shimmer from the water's edge.
Ships sleep, rocking gently on a resting sea,
machines of quiet obedience.
The moon, outlining the clouds above with an electric hue,
watched over the winds as they circulated the vacant wharf like ghosts.
The smell of an approaching storm;
the sharp, distinctive fragrance of ozone as it sailed the satin brine.
The sound of distortion upon the ocean's surface;
precipitation submerged beneath its aquatic magnetism.
I closed my eyes as raindrops kissed my moonlit skin,
tracing the alloy carbon framework of cargo ships and yachts.
Falling down my cheekbones like an aggregation of tears,
the harbor became lost in a nostalgic cloudburst.
Everything that's real passes me by
Cause I live on a sheet of paper
I could leave it anytime I want
Convincing myself there's always later
Writing about lives I've never lived
Scares me how I act beyond my age
As I'm fading into the background
Becoming a character on a page
In a fibrous bed
Is where I lay my head
The ink stains my clothes
Watch as I, decompose
I'm too young to think this way
I should live and feel everyday
Always goes back to the pen with me
Real life doesn't phase me and honestly
At times I prefer my paper world
Falling in love with artificial girls
Words can't break your heart, their with you from the start
Ink flows in my veins, to me it's just a game
I'm too young to think this way
Am I far too gone to be saved?
Just one marvelous frame in this world
My beauty is like the autumn leaves
Pretty to see, don't you know I'm dead?
Enshrouded by a blanket of make belief
Instead of trains I played with pencils
Literature in my box of toys
At 6 I held my books in wonder
Desire to intrigue, though I'm just a boy
I tire of real things
Pen holds my puppet strings
I have had enough
Poetry is my love
I'm too young to think this way
I should live and feel everyday
Always goes back to the pen with me
It's where I go to breathe and honestly
At times I prefer my paper world
Falling in love with artificial girls
Words can't break your heart, their with you from the start
Ink flows in my veins, to me it's just a game
I'm too young to think this way
Am I far too gone to be saved?
With enormous zeal
I burn oil by the desk
Drifting, fading, I
Become a child less and less
It's how I escape
This cold and earthly shell
Is it really me
You're talking to, can you tell?
Would you remember me like a good book?
At times I wish you would
See me as a work of art, a wondrous look
I really don't think you could
Instead of a box beneath the ground
I'm a mere mortal striving to astound
Put me on a shelf and put me in your head
Bits and pieces of me to look at when I'm dead
Would you remember me like a good book?
At times I wish you would...
Entered into the contest
"How Poetry Has become You"
Hosted by Michael J. Falotico
Pounding at the resonant head
of my chest—he of hunger
latches his fangs just beneath my jaw—
not to sever silence, but to pummel poison.
Tissue parts with wet reluctance,
he with need more than malice
burrows into the larynx of what
was once controlled, fearful sound.
Nameless, shapeless he who
with shark-possessed teeth does not ravage—
but infiltrates—peeling cartilage from confession,
mining marrow-thoughts clogged in
curse-traversed trachea.
I am a conduit split open—
voice extracted in ligaments,
fibrous and twitching,
stripped from the cords—
myofibrils separatus tendon.
Nameless, shapeless he!
How does he so musically reshape
what I cannot say?
How does he gut syllables
I do not recognize—
yet still, convince me
they are mine?
With his guiding talons,
my breath comes out red,
heavier than blood—
tastes of steel-bitten soul—
boiled vowels
that never knew air
but somehow rise.
His incantation:
Spiritus somni!
Spits into my mouth—
a blessing—not!
a summons—not!
but a shameful dream behind my teeth
like bruises that speak sermons.
Nameless, shapeless he…
He says I was never mute—
only sealed for some latter doomsday…
And now, with my throat laid open like a shrine,
he listens as I blaspheme
my dream.
Diversified, she sat upon the page
a tiny dot of incoherence brushed into the ink
She wondered how she got so small
and stretched to reach an "A",
the brink
which started the sentence of her life,
a thousand words to hide away.
While she studied the paper rift
she noticed the fibrous weave
of every white of every letter
to chalky dust inhaled to breathe
She split herself into twenty times two
and walked the page a struggle
So tired and broken of breath and lung
she scattered and sunk to ink
to sleep, to weep, to wallow and keep
every thought that she dared yet to think
And while the wind caught up the page
and settled it into a pond
she gathered herself in her incoherence
and wrote herself into beyond.
Denizen of abyssal labyrinth,
legendary ancient Wyrm seeks succour
within prodigious sepulchral cavern:
her domicile for an ageless lifetime.
Ethereal shafts cascade through ceiling's
stochastic rifts, piercing tenebrous tomb;
vicious viscous scarlet smears juxtapose
against shimmering iridescent scales.
Aeons past, Faustian pact formed with Man:
vow of harmonious co-existence
exchanged for fulgurant falchion forged in
the heart of dragonflame's conflagration.
Sacred covenant shattered this night by
myriad ironclad interlopers;
ruination's harbinger was strident
warrior wielding token of treaty.
Last vestiges of cacophonous roar
dissipate into the Stygian depths;
acrid stench of brimstone clogs the air as
remnants of vitriolic pyres linger.
Twin gargantuan fibrous wings contract
behind enormous muscular torso;
fulgurating talons sluggishly sheaved
as serpentine tail shudders and falls limp.
Priceless metals and prismatic gemstones
intersperse with charred and twisted corpses;
amongst detritus of mortal conflict,
majestic titan finally crumples.
Massive lurid yellow orbs exhibit
an unfathomable intelligence;
succumbing to the inevitable,
moribund colossus bows forlorn head.
Lifemate butchered by zealous paladin;
remains of final clutch just motes on breeze.
Burden borne by solitary relict:
regal behemoth was last of her kind...
----------------------------------------
(C) John C Michaels, 25th April 2017
Free verse, no meter, no rhymes - as per contest rules.
10 syllables on every line (howmanysyllables.com)
For the contest entitled "A Mythical Creature" sponsored by Julia Ward.
This time every year I think of Him.
I yearn for when He calls for me
Once a little twig of the tamarind
tree all dried up with no leaves.
Rotten core, ready for forest floor.
He gave me water, I sprouted pores.
Sprig to branch then a thriving tree.
This time of year, they come for me.
Cut is severe but I feel no pain.
I've waited longing for His claim.
I hear His voice and am very thrilled.
Today, my destiny will be fulfilled.
'Forgive my heaviness,Your Grace.'
He smiled, lovingly I was embraced.
Then I felt through my fibrous shell,
The torture of the souls in Hell.
It was not I that was heavy, it was
the load of sins He had to carry.
I fell, He lifted and held me closer.
Then He carried me to Golgotha,
all the way upon His shoulders.
Spit, taunted they whipped His body.
Nailed, I held Him up in all His glory.
Crown of thorns, I stood with pride.
Nothing could topple the King and I.
'Forgive them for they know not what
they do.'
Then I cried as He died for them
and not for this piece of wood.
He said; 'You have earned the right,
people will bow before you as today,
you have become the Tree of Life.
T M Ioane
(For Easter Celebration)
Dawn, when silence falters
And the trees of the range-
Are tucked in a bucket of fog
Marching dawn whose beauty never alters.
I tuck myself in blankets like a log
At the Treetops Hotel upon the range
Dainty dreams upon dawns altar
The dappled peacock dazes the dawn
While the African crowned eagle
Will soar, prowling for prey
And tourists peep and picture the fawn
While their eyes prowl the breakfast tray
Jacaranda festooned fashion regal
Its blue flowers blue snowfall upon dawn
Elephants trudge to the watering hole
Buffalo follow, even the bush buck
The warthog always walks silly,
The big five will steal your soul
At the Ark's perch, you will be stuck
The water adorned by the pond lily
The range's serenity, waters your soul
Pristine streams gush from the moorlands
The Hagenia, decked in velvet green
The sword lily, sheathed in fibrous tunic
And as the Karuru falls hit land
True love will pierce to the gene
For pristine nature, is the true cupid
Breaths bated as lovers hold hand
Further, nestled nigh in the blue skies
The Kinangop peak, peeking through
The closer I get, the further it hides
A sun bird chatters, along my trail's high
My eyes in tune, such wondrous hillsides
I sweat as I head towards the bamboo
I am among the butterflies
Ringlets in a dance, oh! surreal world
Monkeys swing, tree to tree, a trail of imagination
A reed buck is openly grazing
A canvas of the grassland in its gold
I spot a Serval cat, in hiding
On a safari truck, the breeze is an inspiration
Beauty flows in the altitude that I behold
At dusk the steeped villages prepare for sleep
The Nyandarua range yawns it's last
Fabled home of the Kikuyu god
Curtain like shadows befall the steep
And this wonderland begins to nod
As the women fluff off days dust fast
Mens ears wide open as it darkens deep
Wild animals are known to visit
Roving around, excitement for the young
But the animals are known visit hungry
The locals know too well, memories vivid
An elephants wrath is meted out bluntly
Protection for man and beast not far flung
Conservation and nurture is the spirit
As Mount Satima watches her watered floors,
She knows the heart goes deep
Lustrous black hangs over pale skin
Gleaming green under deities sight
Wheeling toes transfer lanolin
Watchers skill shadows this neophyte
Who's damning dexterity draws in
The old woman watching weaving
Whispering advice to halt spokes
But fibrous boasts offend mountain
War horns sound an electric warning
Arachne's eyes roll with faster strokes
Athena whets sharp javelin
Circling pressure spills lymphocyte
An emerald eyed grimalkin
Issuing challenge instead of a fight
To save face in front of kin
Anxiously she begins fabricating
Charring wood, wisping smoke
Arachne remembers old sin
Clean fingers start recording
Twenty one episodes to provoke
Woven lust impregnates linen
Details capture birthright
Divine lashes flicker, flecking venin
Mortal legs levitate, threads snap and choke
Defiant victory from the coffin
Punished and reborn with aconite
To appease her guilt for relaxed reign
Arachne is transformed and hanging
Always spinning; a masterstroke
Each day many fall,
Them hardened furry balls.
And oh how they call
Perched on the coconut tree sturdy and tall
Nothing but ‘em coconuts on a dead-end street
With their half-formed wobbly meat
Them coconuts that leave
Me bitter from the sweet.
The tears of the coconut you see
Fall for ideas that never come to be
Dangling fibers from the tree
Bear witness to my priceless fee.
I count them coconuts on a dead-end street,
Each one rotten and each one sweet.
One rumbled of the thunder the night two hearts met
One caught all my laughter in its fibrous net.
O coconuts of the dead-end street
O coconuts rotten and sweet
O coconuts when they fall
Splatter into wounds bloody and raw
O coconuts of abundance
O coconuts of remembrance
Them coconuts, how they count how they
Count your absence
my meme replacement therapy
is going quite well
because I can't handle everything thrown at me
everything is a lot and GIGO to boot
the fibrous growth in my ear
said that the future signals us in some way
maybe coded glances wink wink
but we're not sure of the spelling
a real spectacle of setbacks
a bleeding archaeological phantom
engineered to manipulate
moving my pen in gleeful jerks
with a genteel appetite for mayhem
which is why I am now sharing
the secret of life with you
ready
mind is derivative
well that's it
looks like I've blown my cover
if this sounds like propaganda then it is
now to get on to the meatier part
first a matter of indexing
last a matter of indexing
buzzards are circling my guardian bottle of muscatel
and a couple of robins too
a tempestuous tune in a teapot
from follow the bouncing ball
to Rocky Horror
occult syntax as a 2nd language
and that was the last surface
he ever palpated
because the sages are perpetually boring
but have good circulation and a ruddy face
with long lists of abjurations as usual
one of them spoke just now
sending me in to negotiate
because I have a snake pit for a soul
on further reflection it turns out
I have many souls
most of them severe critics
several are wind up toys
academic or practical you decide
existence is both diagrammatic
and ready to throw a punch
in an ancient tangle of inconsequentials
well perplexity is the root of all humor
how is it that some ideas
are interpreted by other ideas for example
but whatever you do
never let an ideology sit in court
we know too much to be stupid any longer
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/nhfk6dr
On the back deck,
snow has turned two empty chairs,
sitting beside the shrouded grill,
into phantoms with open arms
waiting for corn to roast,
peppers to lose their crisp edges,
onions to gather sweetness,
and shrimp to hold their fibrous flavor
for the taster's tongue.
Birds by the score, alerted
by the snowy air, raid
the feeder above the grill.
Woodpeckers come,
the hairy, the downy, the nuthatch
the ladder-backed, feasting on suet.
Smaller birds ignore fear
(and the watchers behind glass),
bravely eat beside their enemy
as they dart, hop, fly on, over,
and under, two chairs and a grill.