Best Limb Poems
Hitch-hiking on the road of yellow bricks
I took a chance upon a passing whim
It ferried me where thins grow out from thickes
Turns out, I found myself out on a limb
Imagine, on a limb and at my age
How could I get my feet back on the ground
My first instinct was fly into a rage
A brainstorm came, then all my anger drowned
Yet this was not my first time on a limb
Fact is, I've shinnied down more than a few
These days, instead of taking it so grim
I've learned to sit and just enjoy the view
If you're caught on a limb by some mistake
The bright side is, the damned thing didn't break
by Daniel Turner
on one gold-leafed limb
where shadows now sooner fall. . .
a forsaken nest
Posted 8/12/2010
For 'Favorite Nature Haiku' Contest
Sponsor: Constance La France
Smack dab in the heights
a moment missed
where cracks crease
the self-destruct
unnoticed
in the reality
that life evolves
enveloping every step
up the ladder
surveying tattered seams
costs of lovers dreams
and then you fall
or fail
to see the lessons
and what they truly mean
waves to me in wind
leaves flagging spring’s fast defeat
summer’s shady win.
May 8, 2016
Short Poetry Contest
Similar to a leg ripped loose
you learn to hobble on crutches
but like a phantom limb
the amputation still throbs
long after the wound has closed
Those few precious seconds
between sleeping and waking
you are as you once were
then the awful will of God dawns
then it’s oh yeah, my leg is gone…
Blissful he appears
Enjoys nature’s habitat --
Survival instinct
We have missed something
Only man kills for greed, sport --
We are devolving
*Entry for John Freeman's "Natural and Beyond" contest (Haiku first, then Senryu)
Went out on a limb and lost my way
burned all the bridges I know
a drove of seagulls passed me by
flapping their wings, they waved goodbye
Now I'm heading your way,
and I pray the ocean leads me home.
July 31, 2021
Contest Name: Bite Size Poem # 15
Sponsor Name: Line Gauthier
Eagle on a Limb
The faraway gaze
of an eagle on a limb
is mesmerizing.
***
Note:
The eagle in Chinese paintings is symbolic of heroism and when portrayed in a pine tree, symbolizes strength combined with longevity of life.
Cleverly
Articulated as I type these words,
Cleverly thought up, diligently said.
Hence, this is where my story begins.
As words come, I should write,
No place to go, but what is right?
Thought up in verse,
You see, I know.
But about its sentences,
We will read, but how's it going?
The poem it is with arousal begins,
My brain is stirring out on this limb.
My rhyme, you see, has it to be,
Or is it this that is a joke?
My fingers, my thoughts,
These words that I type.
I am doing my best,
Do you see as I write?
I shall write these words,
In its simple of ways.
I think my story has found its end.
Not so fast I'll try writing this again.
Edited 04/27/2023
Tail swingin’ from branch to branch
Leaves rustling rush
Trapeze artistry
Burlesque style
Noonday sun
Way more than fun.
Evolution eschewed fur
so the people could make clothes
‘cause they like to be busy
and pretty
and are easily bored.
Or perhaps God didn’t want people to play in trees
without their clothes on
at least not for long.
Inklings of overexposure
feel like impending sunburn
overwhelming in light of
blisters past
Retreat…
Miles and miles
of wild west highways
teaches mirages
look exactly like water
til you’re right there on top ‘em.
How much further, Jesus?
Hold the course?
Take a right?
Gettin' mighty thirsty here.
But then again,
betcha Jesus
doesn’t have a tail.
Better ask another monkey.
So tightly squeezed shut
Is the flow to healthy flesh,
That might by your release
Ramble back and return again.
The tireless dancer sends an echo,
Desperate, pressing,
Pulsing into the vice
So far from home.
The Missing Limb
I was driving a long when I saw half an arm, from
elbow and down to hand, on the verge of the road.
I stopped picked it up with my right hand and it
quickly grabbed my left wrist and wouldn´t let go.
A man came from the bushes: “it is my arm,” he
said and wrestled it off my wrist and connected
the limb to its rightful place, stapled and put it
between his shirt opening looking like Napoleon.
He told me that years ago he lost his own arm,
doctors sewed a new one on; works ok, but there
are tasks it doesn´t like to do like being helpful
when nature calls, I let my right hand do it but
sometimes I forget the left detaches itself tries
to run off. With that he went back to his field
mounted a tractor, his left arm worked fine, and
he disappeared in a blast of dust and diesel fume
Haiku Poetry
PRIZE
staring roving eyes
kookaburra on a limb
wriggly worms the prize
A tall tree I did climb,
on a bet of a dime.
Baby Bear said it was funny,
it was not for the big money.
The limb broke what a crime.
don't understand your subtle statements
A recollection of days spent in each others basement; wasted
With candlelight camp-fires that could calm the nerves of a pilot crashing
or a mother dying to give life out of nothing more than fear and passion
There's was a place silent, void of any holes
Where not even frequencies unheard by man could penetrate the distance
between our souls
A time when we needed each other for love and comfort like money to keep us
living
Was it really time and space forcing our distance? no, but time is unforgiving
To little is the time left where nothing seems to go right
So i took that one last gasping breath waiting for the impact holding the seat tight
relax; letting the airbags do their magic, i begin to think of the science behind it
before i go through the windshield
tragic how the common irrational thoughts can hypnotize if you're not willing to
feel healed
Images of blood flooded in the eyes of an ocean
A transparent turquoise with greenish tints reminiscent of sun soaked beaches
where smiles are the currency of emotion.
I am vacant like an empty apartment, renovated to make a quick sale but easily
torn apart
I left you voiceless, handicapped with no blue ribbon for a life well spent breaking
pieces of me and mending another's heart
White like the light of stars traveling a billion miles to get here are your teeth
which repeat sweet lies
Like the dissipated whispers of affection you spoke to me on the beach at
sunrise
You were lucky to get out when you did, you didn't have to play paramedic to the
broken arms that you once held me in
Gone, now beyond medicine's advances is my instrument of sin
The heart not the legs and arms that kept me at your whims
Speak to me you say, i call it the "art of losing a limb"