Best Follicles Poems
Willows wheeze while traders weep
A head for softer shoulders grasped
Spread another bid too deep
On margin calling crumpled dreams collapsed
Umbrellas saved the follicles
While frozen feet alarmed by sudden cold
Observe the blaze advanced to diabolical
All paper perished, all future visions sold
Jackals trace the wall of worry
Dining on the furtive few
Until at last the feast of falling flurry
All pensioners resolve eschewed
My toes squirm
like fat little worms
through this moist soil
they let go of their convolution;
disconnect from the brain that tells them
each day
what they are
and are not.
Here they are just so.
My hands grab
like the beaks of birds
these golden blades of grass
let go of the rocks they carry;
wipe clean the slate of crumbs they leave
each day
their way home
to evidence –
now left just so.
My lungs burn with life
a crisp morning air
razors through them
ecstatically.
My eyes caress such
fine tendrils of light
called dusk and dawn and
mystery.
My ears collect an orchestra
of locust song and wood
bursting forth in a crackling
warmth.
My mouth kisses a
saturated breeze impregnated
with ocean and pine and flirtatious
berries.
Their juices stain my chin.
These feelings stain my skin.
And draw out pricks
from parched follicles
with neural fingers
that trail over
and into
and through
my being
“this is it”
My breath whispers carelessly
in an ice-shackled cloud
that veils my face
with its truth.
A maternal gesture
of nature
towards itself.
For it is I
and I surrender
to this sensory onslaught.
“this is it”
Being alive is a wondrous
wondrous
thing.
You can take back my adulthood
I don't want it anymore
Please rescind responsibilities
My (horrific) credit score ...
I have no use for maturity
Expectations, "Dreams Come True"
Accomplishments and wisdom
Take back those, (and taxes, too) ...
I've no need for graying follicles
Creaking bones or RX plans
And that horrid label "middle-aged"?
FAR more than I can stand ...
Loss of teeth and twisted digits
Startling bursts of gas, et al
Santa bellies, moles and crow's feet
They're just killing my morale ...
This affliction they call "turkey neck"
Double chins and mem'ries, dry
(Each time I find myself somewhere
I'll be damned if I know why) ...
Losing friends because of politics
Or who takes the better meds
Whose brood is most prolific
(Can we do a count of heads?) ...
This "senior" thing is for the birds
Not worth its weight in gold
So I'd like a refund on my age
I'm damn SICK of getting old ...
Please, I want to be a kid again
With no worries, goals, or bills
I'd rather be tagged "immature"
Than "older than the hills" ...
I have studied this "decrepitude"
How it's changing me and friends
Thus I'm swapping my Life's Story ...
I don't like the way it ends.
Urges ushered Est’bel out of her abode –
a cottage cobbled together from cobwebs and clapboard –
and she scuttled forth,
her nesty hair tousled
by a leaf-laced breeze
In her bony hands she clutched
dregs of a nightmeg broth
in a porcelain jar stoppered
by a coffinwood shard
Her bare feet stepped on thorny twigs
but she felt them not,
for her soles had been hardened
by countless treks across hot coals
washed up from stygian shoals
Leftward she turned,
meandering down the narrowing, twisting path,
where uprooted mandrake tendrils
clutched at her anorexic ankles,
while ravens pecked at her frayed follicles,
until she snatched a leaf
from a passing philodendron,
folding it into a tri-cornered hat
and plunking it atop her pate,
rakishly askew
Dewey sap from twisty-trunked trees
dripped onto the nape of her gnarly neck
and a raven on a nearby branch
cawed his amusement,
earning him her owlish scowl
She spied a row of rotting poppies
and plucked a bunch,
sticking them into a crevice of her hat,
then stepped onto a walkway of cracked shale slabs,
which shunned her footprints,
replacing them with snail streaks
to mark her passing
She made her way to a listing tombstone
atop a gnarled knoll encased in gelid moonbeams
and fringed by shushing sawgrass
She took a small vial of indigo glass
from beneath her shabby shawl
and pulled out a stopper made
from a finger bone of an unfaithful lover
whose pickled tongue hung from a
silver chain around her neck
She poured the contents of the vile vial
into the porcelain jar and
listened to the fizz.
It subsided into sloshes,
reminding her of the sounds
issuing from demented shells
snatched from the forlorn shores
of stygian shoals
She gaped at the sky
as an owl flew past the moon,
stirring the dark craters,
which broke up into swirling spirals,
sucking lunar beasts beneath the surface,
where they dissolved in the ceaselessly sliding sands
And Est’bel raised the jar to her lips
and drank a toast to the moon,
and awaited the enshadowed shades
drifting down the snail-slimed pathway,
propelled by a leaf-laced breeze
Bullfrogs in the belfry – get it on.
Butterflies sipping tea – get it on.
Bananas making bread – get it on.
Bubbles beyond belief – get it on.
Bare bottoms bumping blue birds – get it on.
Got on it – hair follicles parading past ferris wheels.
Got on it – hungry appetite hurrying onto subways.
Got on it – helpful hints scurrying onto freight cars
Got on it – hilarious hippos stomping through a zoo.
Got on it – hugs all around for the USA, red, white and blue.
Not To Be Used
Isabel Serrano Hoogsteyns
Tickling began to contour my face
Cold destroyed the water
The windmill enforced in pain
I felt powerful
Velocity, the verse of my whole body
Moving in a single direction
Follicles covered the air
There was a sour sound, like the one of metal clinging
Boom! A sudden stop
His face was a fresh grass after a long night sleep
Up and down, this flesh was his
Nonetheless, not to be used
Not to be touched
The red around them made my heart untangle
Discover the power of a single word
Except, to notice this wound was gone...
She wonders where to go, clueless in her ceramic cage,
with octaves oceanic (there's an oaf in my ocarina)
But Oh! Her delight when her Breather goes soprano
a whippoorwill trying her wings in the sauna sky
laps of leisure in steamy cirrus clouds
(there's a glider on the Puget Sound)
And she knows the stories that abound
in the sensation of a sonnet
(though you may shake a speare at the classic verse)
She's licked the pearl pages of such pretty pamphlets.
You could say she's been around ...
Fighting flights of fancy through Fraser fir,
as busy as a bee, like she's got somewhere to be
(an important meeting with the sea?
a journey through Farrah Fawcett follicles?)
And things aren't always what they seem,
keeping close ties with Elohim,
lubricating our lungs with lovely life (and the pockets of air between the knife)
More hypocritical than Hebraic Hitler.
With tornadoes in tow
and summer waves that flow
(she has secrets to disclose
for elements in the know)
NOTE: Puget Sound is a sound along the northwestern coast of Washington. Elohim is a Hebraic term for God.
Written on March 18th, 2016
For the Element Wind Contest Hosted by Brian Davey
Placed 2nd
Bouts of lightning flashes,swirls
And lightens up the pitch, black night
Of our neck of the woods
Tailgated by stealthy footsteps
Of growling, grunting, moaning and roaring thunder,
As in gnashing and grinding of canine
As rain, like beads of sweat, acne and goose pimples
Break out on my forehead and entire body,
Sprouting like yam tendrils from the earth;
meandering as water in rain gutter
From a million hair follicles,
Teasing my entire body
And finally docking by hook or crook
Like a boat at it's embedded tributary
Between my negritude toes
I google in consternation, bewilderment
At your obstinate attempt
As pestle on bits of grain in motar
To pound a defiant, renegade earth
Back against the wall in rope-a-dope
To submission and surrender
Powerful strokes of koboko whips
Descending from heaven
As plague upon pharaoh and his kinsmen,
Drumming endlessly on thatch roofs
And corrugated iron roofs alike
Concocting rhythms more intoxicating
And damning than heavy metal music
Images of African women
Resiliently scurrying, shuffling,
Between thatch huts and drooling rain;
Scuttling to retrieve rain water in pails
And ebony children
Drenched in rain like weather beaten bats
Savoring every drop from the whinning sky
Rain,
I yearn for your spirit
But dread your fiery, fury,
Flash and flood
Come rain, soak me in your mist;
Drape me in your dew and moisture
Rain,
Your ghost evokes succor and misery!
The answer has been my motivation,
keeping me awake through the night,
keeping me in love with my passion,
the language of my forefathers,
The answer has been given, inspiring
those before and after his own words,
Yet it rests clear as day in one
of Uncle Walt's most prized pieces,
The answer is my reason for choosing
to be any and all that I am,
The answer is the most beautiful
phrase known to my amateur ears,
The answer, I say, as he comforts me,
as I begin to tear up from his guidance,
"To contribute a verse"
"To contribute a verse!"
I answer proudly to my most revered teacher,
And as if new sight has been given to me,
wiping eyes, I make a promise to my fallen idols,
Saying with the fury of fire in my follicles
"To contribute a verse, and by a child's love,
a man's honor, a student's respect, and a writer's creed,
I intend to...I must...
I shall...I promise..."
With new confidence I am child and man,
With new hope I am afraid and fearless
A child of my ancestors, a man of my word,
Afraid of failure, yet fearless on my journey,
An impossible journey that ends at death,
For death decides if my promise is protected,
Waking to see the world as a blank page,
I will blindly find my way to immortality,
Not for glory, not for honor,
Not for praise, nor for fame,
Merely for a promise to yesterday,
and a responsibility to tomorrow,
With hope, I walk toward the unknown,
unafraid of the outcome of my travels,
With intentions of contributing a verse,
and more importantly, finding myself ,
within my own words...
Gazing at the rear of my head
Many follicles are long since dead
Father Time is always sure to win
These naps are lookin' awful thin
Shall I shave my dome instead?
Hair today, gone tomorrow,
My follicles falling to my sorrow,
Ten thousand dollars to my surgeon,
Some people think I might be splurgin',
But I can't wait for my new hair to grow.
Amid the eerie blue-white glow
she stands erect, poised and ready
to loose her awesome power.
Above the constant ebb and flow;
above our motley desperation,
gathers she strength by the hour.
Our pallet, longing for the taste;
anticipation dances in our veins.
A chocolate covered strawberry.
Come near! We hear in our haste.
Tingling frail nerves and follicles
overcome the nonsensical worry.
We acquiesce in the mode common.
Their soothing voiced entrapment --
quiet like the web catches the fly.
And later, of this gift to mammon:
Well, private thoughts should stay
with heartache of the how and why.
Charles Henderson
June 16, 2013
Who’s been wearing my house slippers,
I wanna know
Somebody’s been steaming up
my bathroom shower window
I wanna know
who’s been sleeping in my bed
Leaving on my pillow,
golden strands of their nappy head
Who done ate the rest of
my leftover roast
Who done scarfed down the last of
the garlic buttered toast
Somebody been creeping
in and out my door
Somebody been spitting
cherry pits all over my floor
The only clue I got
is those curly, golden hair threads
They better hope
I don’t get a hold of them nappy dreads
Who’s been wearing my favorite robe,
left it in the shed out back
Somebody’s been sending out calls,
ordering movies I don’t like
I wanna know
who’s been laying down in my bed
Leaving on my pillow,
golden follicles of their nappy head
Somebody done ate the other half
of my corned beef sandwich
Somebody done gobbled up all my
homemade turkey casserole dish
Somebody been sneaking,
coming through my backdoor
Somebody been rummaging,
throwing my things all over the floor
I know you been
lurking around here like a fox
I know you been
inside my house, Goldie dreadlocks
And one day soon,
your luck is bound to run out
When them goldie locks get snagged
and cuffed, you’re surely gonna shout:
I had a bad hair day!
Words said with a petulant, fairy tale pout
Her single bouquet
of white roses
slowly expire,
in a cheap crystal vase,
atop a dust-laden
bookshelf.
Petals crying
a lover’s lament
are overheard by
out-patients of Eros
and other
nameless receivers.
She scrapes
her flushed face
against the claws
of a stuccoed wall.
Hidden cutlery
shares space
with buried photographs.
Scores of broken nails
and bleached hair follicles
float so neatly
in rusty brass tureens
filled with tears
of disgust.
Cursing pervades
heavy black corners,
piercing ozone canvas –
breaking codes
of respected silence
and calm.
Desirable wishes
remain empty
and pitifully abandoned;
a Levolor drawn
across the sun’s eyes.
She yelps
a mournful vendetta
against an elusive fate
and a cheated Genesis.
A regurgitated revenge -
a counter play towards
many things…
Inclement weather
and rain-slicked lanes
speeding Hummers
and Hennessey -
chauffeurs and Chivas -
as a limousine bids farewell
to a church filled with ecstatic
onlookers.
Aha...At Last,..Bitta Bing Bitta Bang
The Figurative Nail Hit On The Hair Strand Size Head!
Though no physician,
this aging baby boomer
absolutely, intuitively, and
unequivocally sensed hair loss (mine),
at first a speculative rumor
not simply in my (ahem) head,
no matter a minimalist groomer
nevertheless, thinning follicles,
upon dawning realization, sans medical
sought relief thru good humor,
though within this balding cerebral noggin
became repulsive as if my scalp
pulled pate rendered as a tumor.
Thus an unexpectedly present surprise
when in private consultation in the guise
as out patient client (early afternoon
December 19th, 2018),
where I did fraternize
and kibitz with the medical assistant
(old enough to be my...sister),
aye did exercise
mild mannered mien mean, aye do patronize
before doctor Rudolf (dearly
reigned) Roth, a practicing
Dermatologist told me no lies
his instant karma knowledge - mainly his
thirty seven years expertise
sought to excise
a prominent non cancerous mole approximately
centered middle of back
a small patch of skin,
he needed to anesthetize
nonetheless, a reassuring persona,
yours truly did lionize
(not merely, cuz
he received a five star rating,
specialist under auspices
of Penn, Medicine)
in Radnor Pennsylvania),
his modest calm did neutralize
any uneasiness, as did his pronounced
humility earn kudos to idolize
such rarely present gentility, and
unwitting capacity did harmonize,
and maximize significance to me,
asper my thinning limp
hair logically rationalize
identified underactive thyroid gland
(hypothyroidism) tubby,
which didst legitimize
no hair brained rooted concern,
hence...less reason to catastrophize',
which for no reason I
wanted to mildly emphasize,
hence choice to apostrophize...