Best Foetal Poems
In the whisper of a moonlight stream I heard her sigh or so I thought,
in the rustle of a mottled deer in oak pine forests I heard her weep or thought I did,
or maybe laugh when flitting brightly over jagged rocks.
Upon the silver tides a figure fitting her description swam or maybe drowned or even vanished in the neon haze.
Earth mother, birth mother, bosom to an infant chain,
whose layered womb pulses to infinity,
whose foetal spark aches
for her many sibling forms to coalesce or come to term.
You may see me out on the streets
Lying curled up in a foetal position my sleeping bag in a shop doorway
Trying to get a few hours sleep here in my latest home in cardboard city …
I never stay more than a few nights in one place
can never really settle; these streets aren’t safe
You may see me out on the streets
I’m sitting on the cold damp pavement with an empty coffee cup in my hand
Hoping for a coin or two so I can have some real food in my aching belly
Still you hurry past, trying to avoid making eye contact…
Believe me, it’s so degrading rummaging in the litter bins like a wild animal
But some days it’s the only way I can get any food to eat
The biting cold and wet weather is my worst enemy
I can never get warm even when the sun shines
This is no life, just a way of surviving another day
Guess you think I’m a waster, a dirty tramp
You walk on by; judge me without knowing what lead me to life on the streets
Bet you think I’m a druggie or an alcoholic
I guess most people seem to think that
They see my filthy clothes, straggly hair and grey beard
Just five years ago I was like many of you
I had a career, a beautiful wife, and two lovely children
Spent many months away from home fighting for my country
But then I got sent to Afghanistan…
I saw scenes no man should ever have to witness
I was traumatised
Forever suffering flashbacks of the faces of those innocent people
The children, oh those children – made me think of my two boys back at home
I couldn’t cope any more, had a total mental breakdown
I was a broken man …
My wife could no longer deal with the mood swings , the erratic behaviour
The Army did little to help –
discharged me on health grounds, then basically abandoned me
Now I’ve lost everything … my wife, family, my dignity
Many of the people you see on the streets are like me …
We all have a story to tell, but no one gives us the time of day
Passers-by avert their eyes and hurry past like we are invisible
Your eyes may tell you one thing… but please don’t judge me
Because you don’t know me
What is naked? Without clothes?
Sky clad nightmare feeling shame?
Or deepest secrets all exposed?
Wretched, woeful, just the same
Stripped and helpless to them all
Friends and foes just point and laugh
Curled up in a foetal ball
Fragile façade epitaph
So do I yield? Give up? Withdraw?
Cower from the searing light
Let my guilt just ache and gnaw
Shrivel up without a fight
Or do I stand both strong and proud
Exhibit all! Here's what I've got!
Cry out, berate, exclaim out loud
I'm starking naked! Well? So what?
Few hearts now weep to see you go
O cold harsh naked winter
The last icy tremor of your merciless winds
Fizzling through the choked air
Leaves it's thinning threads in
The oncoming fairyland of Spring.
Winter have you gone, answer me?
A refreshing winter you have been
But how we have longed for your departure
Away away and bury yourself, O harsh east wind
Go now, your season is over
Snatch off your furred coating
And bid welcome -
To a bursting singing Spring.
Welcome, welcome, first lady of creation
Your sweet scented grass sheds tears of dew
Tears of elation, as morning peeps.
As foetal clouds now bathe us
In your new re-birth
Winter threads it's skeleton hand
With it's new love Spring
And with it a new energy is born.
Greenery buds with purity and freshness
The orange canopy floods us with her mirth
While the swelling sun in giant splendour
Can no longer conceal
The first flush of Spring.
The world is awakened by it's mighty arrival
The dance of the daffodils is about to begin.
The last icy tremor of your wintry winds
Fizzling through the choked air
Leave your thinning threads
In the oncoming fairyland of Spring.
Welcome, welcome, first lady of creation
Your sweet smelling grass sheds tears of dew
Tears of elation as morning peeps
Your foetal clouds bathe us in your re-birth
As winter threads its' skeleton hand
With its' new love Spring
And with that a new energy is born.
Song and lilacs greet the dawn
Early birds furrage for the nesting days
Through paths of bluebells they ferry twigs
Celebrating the beginning of morning light.
Fresh air exhales baby crocus buds yonder
While the swelling sun in giant splendour
Can no longer conceal the first flush of Spring.
The world is awakened by its' might arrival
The dance of the daffodils is about to begin.
For Francine Roberts competition Bring on Spring
Sentences dripping with meaning, we sit,
Foetal in a blissfully repetitive equation,
Extinguished stumps of trees taking brief roots
On a plastic surface a meteor’s distance above;
A flood of harmony resumes under the clinical glow of misspent youth.
Condensation condescends from dull walls
Saturated with dim impressionable images,
Ideas shaped to a teardrop’s curve leaking
From cloud-like minds to dry tongues in a leaden cavalcade;
Thus everything means anything insightful anymore.
We ascend in drowsy downpour of precise procedure,
Ending this sodden epoch for the molten notes
And clean ceiling-clung starlight of a place beyond The Box.
Dear child,
Do you see the lady in the red dress?
She has eyes like diamonds
Crystal clear, sharp, blue and shining.
And a smile that could
Stop your heart cold
And then, in a moment, bring it back to life,
She has hair that makes Niagra
Blush, and forget her own worldly wonders.
But darling dont be fooled,
For shes not gold,
Don't be fooled by Antimony.
Dear child,
Now you stare unapologetically
At the lady in the red dress
And chains connect the two of you at your ankles
Shackles of disguise
Do you walk as she walks?
Stroll as she glides?
Wait, dear friend,
Let me meddle some more.
Turn your freckled face my way
And listen darling child.
Do not be fooled for shes not gold
Do not be fooled by antimony.
Dear child,
I heard from the friend of a friend,
But you may suffice with just me.
The lady in the red dress is nought but a muse
And lures unwary travellers to fatal depths, foetal deaths.
You may think that you are a man of fifty-one
And flagellate your opinions of her to me,
To your family,
To your sisters and your brothers
But be aware dear child
For you are a mere embryo
And abortions do not draw tears from her gems.
So darling child,
Do not be fooled for she's not gold.
Do not be fooled by antimony.
Dear child,
Do you see the lady in the red dress?
You disregard all I say,
Just as I had feared.
Your eyes follow the grace of her hand
And the blood of grapes
She so elegantly downs
In most ritualistic manner
From most ritualistic crystal goblet.
Dear lord,
Pray that you are not hypnotised
But instead you pray that you may be the thread
And she the needle's eye
Yes, she is sharp
And polished and sews tremendous garments
Of Rage, Romance and Regret.
But darling child,
Do not be fooled for shes not gold.
She is not steel
Nor platinum,
Nor copper,
Nor bronze,
She is not even as simple as coal.
Nor is she carbon's other allotrope.
She is crystalline - true.
But as toxic as can be.
My lady in the red dress,
Dear child,
Is antimony.
It is a nagging subject,
this quest within the mind
to reach beyond the self to
that great universal churning
of the truth-- unfolding rays of light
we may not quite depend upon, yet
praise. It does not go away.
One may be thankful. Truth
has a way of coming back.
Another self, autonomous, may then
step up, select a gleam, do with it
as the will dictates, and toss it in.
Caution! The cauldron seethes;
belief is on the dock, tender, foetal,
vulnerable to scrutiny--not yet
worthy of the eyes of time.
It may still moil an instant
(or millenium) emerging as
an honored tool, or ignominious,
lost, unworthy, slipping
quietly away as it is found.
There you have it, an elusive servant
but our single hope of nurture
for an ever infant cry that resonates
throughout the ages:
Tell me why.
~
The Poets Plucker….. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Here in my cold lonely bed I ponder my all
I have FEARS in SOLITUDE of being alone
DEJECTION of my love had pierced my heart…..yet
THE NIGHTINGALE sings lustily a cheerful tune
My consciousness behaves as EOLIAN HARP
as Coleridge poem suggests full of delusion
So through opaque glass my window I cannot see
FROST AT MIDNIGHT has now spoilt for me this vision
So with dejection, curl into a foetal ball
hiding In THIS LIME-TREE BOWER A PRISON MAKE
I await my fate, wondering will my heart heal
Will I from my ongoing pity…soon awake
penned 5 February 2017
The officer’s whistle opened the door,
the pain of mortar did greet the damned
and I did nap with death in no man’s land.
In cold of night the stretcher did wake
from peace to hell and burning pain.
These eyes will see the stars no more,
no comrades smile for me.
The darkness has won
for light has abandoned me
and my face is for others to see.
Am I alive? The pain agrees,
my hand can feel this fevered brow.
What will home think?
to only half a man
and will England still respect this man?
The sound of an angel, who talks with God,
a poor soul for sale,
could that be me?
And God condemns
that I am not worthy,
for others deserve better
than half of me.
And in my darkness
Opium’s womb enters my veins
the pain chased away by foetal claim,
while the music of war in shrapnel fragment
screams a tortured lament.
And youth will queue to die in vain
among the ranks of nightingales reign.
These deities who tend this holy fodder
grow distant with bloody rags.
My mind feels the heat of shrapnel’s breath,
the thought of box in foreign field
the feel of sun and breeze denied
and claustrophobia feeds my fear.
Lonely is the grave with no goodbye
and I do not want to die.
But god is my surgeon and he is beat,
the angel will deliver mercy
and death will get his degree.
For compassion was hers to give,
the touch of her hand
will wipe this brow.
The cold of the scissors will cut the tag
and I will join a corpse’s march
obeying the ghost of captains orders
uniting friend and foe in melting borders.
In death I will believe
and hope will leave this earth with me.
My reward is tempered by sword and cross
epitaph is poured over another loss.
And country prepares to count the cost
The drone of the letter
this paper of man
typed in halls by Vatican whores,
delivering their knock on mother’s door.
This pain of England’s son
will lie in empty bed,
silence will be hers to see.
A candle for me in winter’s light
but death will play in mother’s night.
Her tears will wash this wooden cross,
the house will cry for little boy lost
and the dog will sit with eye on door,
never to wag his tail no more.
Teacups by the sink.
Lamentations laid to rest.
I, a foetal curl,
Breathing in your life, now gone
Cocooned in your unwashed shirt.
Seed - scattered strewn or downtrodden.
Grain stuck on passive flytrap mucus.
Wild life biomes ripe with open sesame.
Frantic birth pangs stiffen their gestations as green leaf ferments bubble underneath.
Mother of all wombs, diva pulse or fertile runner bean.
Maternal youth.
Eternal youth.
Bamboo shoots that wave their infant tassels
in a windmill vane.
Future plant life leveler a wobbly wellie earth crunch.
Squelching noises tower over brown air pigment mulch.
Sweet pea treasure’s
plot or topsoil script, ploughman’s pen an agri-birthmark issue.
Acorns cling to feather beak and claw with migrant species casually dispersing airborne clan.
Pity the poor bacteria as they bear their own strain.
Mediators in regrowth,
life cycle go betweens who skirt around infinity.
Pregnant life force signage points at blossom, branch and blade.
Father sky, whose azure blue tarpaulin watches blithely as we earthlings bloom like algae.
Captain chlorophyll, the sunshine nabbing pirate rules the waves.
Sugar dazzle booty on display for fortune hunters everywhere.
Placenta of the rural outcrop overstretched.
Nourishing, replenishing yet prematurely procreates its progeny.
Compost layer genus code emulsions where thorny splatters worm themselves inside.
Gene pool mirror drapes its vibrant colour wash on foetal lime bow and arrow twigs.
A prism to some rainbow tint or shaft.
Muddy waters percolating sluggishly through all those clay born matrices below.
Our natural breeds now wet nurse turf ground offspring.
Nutrients absorbed by network carriers- sprout and stem WIFI eco-mates.
Elevator of the undergrowth in embryo.
Going up going down.
Timeless womb your time will always come.
Posted 13 th August 2021
A man stands on a hilltop, weeping.
Come and see.
For he has watched a nation unaware,
chipped away to just this memory.
We'd found that we could meet a war,
and through a sacrifice to find its end
and then in one obscenity, (a burst of light)
attended with our souls the foetal cavity
of madness--gave to the world
a blood-besotted flag,
and yielded up its ghost.
His tears come hotter, for
they cannot be assuaged.
Once we knew that love existed.
Beauty quietly confirmed itself
before our eyes; we had a god
and ate his flesh, and drank of him--
and once we lost ourselves in moonlight.
Once we sang.
And shall we turn away?
Such grief is unconsolable
and may not be forever shared.
The man has tears enough for us.
Our nation, swept away by greed,
left us only with this hilltop.
Come, and let us find the strength
for our own weeping,
our own blasphemous eternity.
~
Germ of essence.
Human blob.
Shattered eggshell to the chicklet hatched.
Interlocking family of a kingdom.
Beget or begone? Antigone!
Pouch bearing mammal with no issue for her milk a plenty.
Enlightened species on
a zodiac sign.
Propagating genus wild and free yet stillborn.
Wet nurse in a pregnant phase but still a child at hearth or so it seems.
Meadow grazing Macropod fazes antipodean observer all the while.
New arrival signage whose laboured footprint chills on every impact.
Courier from catacombs, fateful torch aloft, flambeau at a glance where toddlers cheer, sonnet form heraldry ablaze with kindling verse.
Human destination thread that spins a hopeful tale.
Cave of legends halting site persevered by household zeal.
Stalagmite, stalactite, granite grey day gulag’s natal spasm.
Troglodyte who once did tramp upon a uterine tunnel trading in survival for relief.
Embryonic creeper stuck on dry wall canvas.
Border crossing cradle cordons off a check point, never mind the cost or inconvenience.
Acorn random toss, mighty oak seed trap between a leaf and fallen log.
Flower pollen stigma,
never seen as shameful to the fertile mind.
Tree of life penumbra casts a limelight shade.
Concepts pulse the mind like nascent parabolic kites that stymie outcome.
Genesis of brainwave.....
nurtured by insightful minds and marble carver tomes.
Olympic status offspring, budding Einstein player on the ball.
Thought, the inner urchin magnet probing deep inside magenta labyrinths.
Wheel of fortune‘s mumsy shadow
ova.
Masterful philosophy storing foetal logic on some growth cell’s wellspring fountain.
Infant augur embers fan their winter flame regardless.
Birthright , birthstone,
birth pang, the reproductive organs of infinity whose algebraic series has no final chapter scheduled.
Don't think I don't think about you. It's been rough without you. Even though I've never really had you it's been tough without you. For days, I ponder on certain ways. To praise, the beauty of your words even though your smile had me hooked for days. Hooked for days. Inject me with some pure ethanol because getting drunk off ecstasy only had my body looking for the floor. It's stupid. Why weren't you the floor? I found the floor so many times I blacked out. I practically made love to the floor but you weren't the floor.
Inject me with some ethanol. I need this alcohol to be pure. Just like your feelings. Pure. But those feelings weren't strong enough so question: Are You Tryna Drink Some Wine Or Nah? Silence. The answer was never in your words anyway. So show me. Show me with your brown-inked eyes along with your inner self called Kid Chris. Go back to the 5 year old you that liked being a boy because "Girls like dolls and dolls are not real." Imagination was the real child in you but you aborted it because apparently Imagination doesn't give birth to Reality.
Open your real eyes and realise that I think about you. Sorry for going off track but how can you blame me when looking into your brown ink gave birth to a little child called Reality looking for Imagination. Don't kill something that hasn't lived just because you don't know what it's like to Imagine.
Feelings.
Question: "Are You Tryna Drink Some Wine Or Nah?" Let's break the walls you forgot were built because you don't know how to bring them down. Would you believe me if I told you that you're just too afraid? What are people going to say? What will they think about me? Will I ever be accepted again? Irritation gets to me because I can't remember where your parents put words inside your little foetal self as if you were defined by words. I don't want to define you. I don't even want to help you define you. I just want to make sure you don't break down when you've finally defined yourself.
Feelings.
Question: "Are You Tryna Drink Some Wine Or Nah?"
2016/01/14