Best Gooseflesh Poems
Mist in the distance, heart quickens to gooseflesh
Whisky Jacks perch silent, they've seen me before
Brother Wolf has been by, his scat is still fresh
Ancient eyes follow me, née jinn shapes of lore
Small clearing before me, my own private crèche
Hidden falls dance and play, their ions restore
Spray glitters like diamonds, the Sun leads the band
As time disappears, my soul breathes a free land
I am hearing the monks again
Their silent screams in the streets of Saigon
I thought they would leave me alone
But I am haunted by their aura
The bamboo vipers
And the smile of the tigers
Deep in the primordial
Scream
Why do they infect my soul?
Why can I let them be and they me?
It wasn’t even my war.
I was too young to know
The inequities of war
Yet the birds fall around my feet
Every time I smell burning flesh
Perhaps I am too old for this skin of mine
A young man told me tonight
That he recognized me as a long lost grandfather
From his Mayan roots
Did I sacrifice other men to please the God’s?
Or was I sacrificed and am now twice haunted.
Gooseflesh. The hair on my neck stands ups.
But what about the monks?
Sun shining
Warmth spreads over me
Gooseflesh covers my arms
I close my eyes
Inhaling deeply the scent of the sea
Looking up I watch as the waves crash around the rocky shore
The clouds roll in
I can smell the storm coming in on the wind
I sit up to leave
The fog has come in now covering everything around me
Something brushes my feet
Its cold
I look down
The tide has come in
How did it happen so quickly
I’ve lost all sense of time
The water rises fast
Pulling me in
I try to turn and walk to higher grounds
I slip
The waves are strong
Pulling me under
I am surrounded by glorious water
In a startled panic I reach for the surface
Air
I have run out of
I find the top
Gasping for air
It fills my lungs
I find I have been drug out to sea
I can no longer see the shore
A wave laps over me
Under Under Under I go
As my last breath is taken
I will myself to live
Pleading with the gods
Any who will listen
The salty water stings my eyes
Just as my last moments come
I find utter peace in all that is
This world I have found myself in is beautiful
A watery dungeon of beauty
I fall down deeper into the depths
Understanding that this shall be my prison
Excepting it
Understanding it
Wanting it
A mermaid I’ve become
A watery angel I shall be
romance ricochet off the walls
odes of love abounded,
mixed with gooseflesh emotion
all depicting memories of how love
nurtured by the sun, sea and sand
treated to a romantic interlude
in a secluded hotel.
Changed my life...
I can’t think.
Can’t get my thoughts
To stop their frenzied waltz
And line up once again
In a straight pattern,
One after the other,
The way they used to
When everything was still
So goddamned simple.
I can’t effing think.
If my shattered heart
Beats any faster,
I fear it will escape
The familiar prison of my ribcage,
Take off into oblivion
As I wish I could
Every time I meet
My own pleading eyes
In the reflection cast
By broken mirrors.
Thinking used to hurt
So much less than it does now.
Even my own damn voice
Makes my skin erupt
In waves of gooseflesh;
A rain dance illuminating
How dark and how cold
Self-hatred can become.
The blindingly bright fires
That once warmed my despair
Are hardly pinpricks of light,
Dwindling away the more I drown:
The more my hair swirls
Around my tear-stained face,
The more my hands
Fail to grasp for the rope
That might have saved my life
If it had been thrown
Just a bit sooner.
Fixed atop the crag, she stands with sapphire eyes that pierce the foggy gloom
I toss her raven locks about and whisper softly through the intoxicating silk
Gooseflesh rises on smooth, alabaster flesh as I turn again to blow a kiss
My breath feathering softly with icy caress against her warm and perfect cheek
The temptress seems to notice not as I linger with frigid fingers at tender nape
Then grip her woolen sleeves, urging her to seek the source as I lament
She remains at the ledge, unhindered by my attempts to gain her perception
Contented and serene she waits for he who gives her confidence in love
Her beauty is such that all forces of nature take notice and leave their rightful place
To coax the enchantress in ways that cross over the boundaries of element and matter
As my beguiled self seeks to grasp the soul within her bosom and selfishly claim it
From a most formidable foe; a man that has captured her priceless heart for his own
Her rich and heady scent I breathe, so lovely she appears, and though I am unseen
I will be heard and shall be felt once she is snared within my undulating trance
For beneath the cliffs where she waits for her love I command the sea to surge
Up close to where she stands…and she glimpses me for one glorious moment
Then it is gone.
As he approaches, her countenance changes; rapture plays across her elegant face
Proudly he beams and an audible sigh escapes his lips as he strides nearer to the edge
Where the object of his deep desire stands alone on the jagged precipice; the cliff
This piques the jealous side of me. I wonder, "What if… I now bring an enormous gale?"
Inspired by Christie Moses’ contest, The Many, Voices of the Wind (December, 2008)
Raised up gooseflesh dipped in metal,
a shiver runs right down my spine;
Every emotion they enshrine,
somehow the scream helps me settle;
Please hit that double bass pedal,
I’ll throw you a devil horn sign;
Raised up gooseflesh;
They view me as the jezebel,
a black fishnet flavored outline;
With a head bang everything’s fine,
healing factor with no equal;
Raised up gooseflesh.
I roam through this forest of vibrant hues
Lush plants of bright greens
Deep shadows of blues
I amble along at contentments pace
Soft moss on bare feet
Dreamy smile on my face
No sense of urgency swallows my steps
I wander freely
Exploring its depths
Sheets of sheer mist dance down a small path
the tickling sensation
making me laugh
Natures wet kisses upon my skin
Gooseflesh erupts
Tailing tingles within
I shake off a shudder running down my spine
Dew drops on my neck
Standing under the Pine
Golden rays dimming to crimson beams
Nighttime has come
In the forest of my dreams
13.04.2021 - In the forest of my dreams contest
When I’m feeling undersized
Feeling something is out of commission
My hair on my arms start to boost
Bringing my goosebumps upon my skin
When water becomes gooseflesh
My goosebumps rise with no distress signal
My body starts to shiver
Like there’s no tomorrow
While my body is looking for that sea of flame
When my gut becomes stronger than my emotions
The hair on my spine start to rise
A tingly feeling passes in my blood
Until it reaches the goosebumps on my legs
Weaken my body
When I lay into a deep dream and it becomes a nightmare
I rise to jump with goosebumps all over my body
When I’m minding my own business and his voice touches me
O’ my, my, my
Those are the goosebumps that touch my soul
The ones I get when the man upstairs comes under my skin
Goosebumps
O’ my goosebumps
I love you so continue to glow
For the way, you flow any bad presence
Can hot potato my o~r~g~s~m
For you will always be my Indian tobacco sauce
Dancing around a fire of smoke
As the chief tends thy fire
My buddle’s in the keepers’ care
For my ceremony of goosebumps
Keep me surviving everyday
I would never complain
Only welcome thy feeling again and again
The end!
I’ve met the slow White hound
I’ve heard his haunting howl
prowl through November air
I shook his frigid paw
that came when bones were bare.
A gusty, spectral thief
of moments far too brief
his whispered pants enticed
and plumy tails left scrawls
a-tangle over ice.
He yelped a quick harangue
and pointed crystal fangs
he stole the autumn rays
denying hope of thaw
so glints of warmth would fade.
He shed his shadows here
and made gooseflesh appear,
he sketched on windowpanes
etched tales with frigid claws
of colors he had slain.
I wandered through the breadth
of chilling, hunter’s breath
where daggers hung on eaves
and sawed the North wind raw
and browned the autumn leaves.
I’ve been surprised by bites
his glacial appetite
and found his muted dye,
a blinding livid shawl
O’er corpses petrified.
I’ve heard the White Hound moan
and chew on arbor bones
and shivers seized my spine,
tight-clenched within his jaw
as Winter swathed my mind.
experimental rhyme scheme:
Stanza 1 -aabcb
Stanza 2 -ddece
Stanza 3 -ffgcg
Stanza 4 -hhici
Stanza 5 -jjkck
Stanza 6 -llmcm
Stanza 7 -nnoco
All of a sudden, the town sort of changed,
As though the years had heaped all their dust in one go,
Reshaping the atmosphere and structure,
Erecting a darker, more feral architecture.
I sat on a bench in the square with a Diet Coke,
A Café Crème silently smouldered in my fingers,
And the ambience bristled, dangerous sensations
Tingling playfully along my gooseflesh arms.
When I was a kid, I remembered, it had felt safe,
Sure it looked crab-apple old, but solid;
Now slightly surreal – a Kebab Shop, a Cost Cutter,
Peddled addictions in the stead of grocers and cafes.
And the windows, once lit, once bright and wide,
Inviting day and night casual window shoppers;
Wares now squirreled away, shut behind steel and mesh,
Blinded produce, unless you have X-Ray eyes.
A car blazed past, peeling paint, hubcaps spraying rain,
The driver wore a reversed baseball cap,
His boombox roared culture of nine-thousand miles distant:
“Yo, mutha, today you die – rat-at-at-tat – today you die…!”
I smoked and drank coke and felt my childhood expire,
It had been years since I sat beside the Great War Cenotaph,
Yet the life that had died so very long ago for me,
Felt as though it had suddenly passed just then.
As if with time I happen to see
a fruit of man's tempted fate -
for quiet words, deeds I seek
and a fruitful life the past ate.
As if Boreas gives gooseflesh
to my kindred sensitive soul,
as if balsam - heavenly fresh -
to my hardly overcome role.
Like a tsar over transient bore,
being at the mercy of higher,
I'm a breast-fed baby, no more,
in the boredom of earthly desire.
Like a thrown bone under the Sun -
easy food for skinny jackals,
and a fortune, - unbidden son,
what, might-have-been, ... - me heckles.
The finch dances merry, weaving feathers into music
That spills from overeager beaks and drips light onto slick wings
Which beat in time with the song, fluttering, flittering,
Finding life in the sky and where the ground meets it, turning,
Twisting note to the bright forgetful where the now is all
And the past does not exist.
Must it be so wonderful? To let go
And float up on thermals over sunset summer parking lots
And the people in them, looking up, or down, or anywhere
Except each other, but freedom tastes not-sweet and all encompassing, like
Air, like blood, like the gooseflesh on your arms when that wind catches
And whispers asking to play in words no one can repeat.
How terrible must it be, to be afraid of the fall?
Because I am not afraid of endings, little bird, and you and I
Will fall forever up until we reach the sky,
And when it ends I will be glad to have been there for the beginning of it.
Why fear failing, why fear falling, when the ground will always catch you?
And as the crane jumps on stick feet to the unawareness of dinosaurs,
I too forget waking up.
How terrible it must be to fear falling asleep!
Because the sky is blue, my dear, and there is no greater honor
Than being a part of that hue someday—
People slave over paper and skin and lightning in metal
Sparking over clumsy fingers meant for braiding grass.
The small bird laughs and flees from the hawk, the raptor,
Watching rapturously the give and take of prey
And the forgiveness of both sides.
How terrible it must be to be afraid of endings, finch,
And to be aware of them!
But I refuse to mourn myself, and so when I fall,
I will be glad to have flown at all.
Does the hair ever stand up on the back of your neck,
When you walk through the Desert alone?
Do you ever feel like someone is out there?
Or perhaps something unknown?
Do you feel like someone is watching,
When there is nobody there?
And you turn around and search, in vain,
But there’s not so much as a hare;
But you still have that creepy feeling,
That you are where you shouldn’t be;
And something out there is telling you,
That you had better leave;
Gooseflesh stands up all over your skin,
And chills prickle down your spine;
Your heart is pounding in your chest,
Surely this is a sign;
A foreboding sense of what might come,
If you don’t move along;
A subconscious sensation that tells you,
You’re somewhere you don’t belong;
So without ado you go on your way,
And don’t give it another thought;
You don’t even consider it later on,
It’s something you just forgot;
But someday you will feel it again,
And search again for the source;
But no matter high or low,
You won’t find the unnatural force;
It is something you weren’t meant to see,
A silent storm hidden from view;
A weakness in your mentality,
That feeds on fragile minded you.
Hellbent
free fall
unsynchronized tumble
Helter-skelter
feet first
head first
Arms akimbo
screaming, holding my breath
into a cold inferno
beyond the stars, shivering
jackals howling
Echoes of the end of time...
startled awake
throat hoarse
covered with gooseflesh
November 25, 2019
Goosebumps Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Delilah Ventura