Best Prickled Poems
On the south-western side of the old mission school,
near the corner of First Street, where blackberries grew
a field claimed by youngsters was crosshatched with tracks.
It was riddled by gophers and, nettled with fox-tails
and the children's bare feet had constructed thin trails,
cupping deep paths that were littered with smiles,
deep in the amber of tall weeds and dry grass.
It wasn't too far from the patched wire fence
that hemmed the backyard of my Grandmother's house.
Westerly whirlwinds would rattle the ragweed,
while seeds of the bull-thorns, that prickled our toes,
would spread with the tumbleweeds, now tossed into rows
like last winter's snowmen, worn to the bone
There were traces of honeysuckle mixed with wild rose
from Grandma's old arbor, that loomed in the distance
A rusty old weather vane like a merry-go round
would spin like a top that might never stop
The ivy was overgrown, and a sleepy old hound
would snooze by the clothesline, in shade he had found
But, deep in the field, was a land of our own
A place we called 'Neverland', a loft in this poem
In the yoke of one tree, with the help of our dad
was a fort built of scrap wood, from piles by the shed.
And by hook or by crook, I would take all commands
While my brother's brewed brainstorms, and his black plastic hook,
assigned him the Captain, while I was the crew
of a ramshackle galleon, brought to life from our books
While I dangled in air, from a tired old swing
"Tinker", my name...in this masculine game..
I would push off, while he pulled me, right up to the sky
and into the branches, with leaves in my eyes......
I would fly to the depth's of a steel gray-blue sky
I would grovel, and shovel, to have his approval........
for he was much older, much wiser than me
I would play like a tomboy,.....shove doll-drums away
Such sweet summer days,......while bright splintered rays
of hot summer sun, would spotlight our play.
We would stay until twilight, to watch the sun die
Defying all gravity.......I could see to eternity
Tootsie Pops clung to the tip of our tongues
while the sun of the twilight, dipped over the dunes
and the call of our mother, slipped over the moon
____________________________________________________________
There it was gazing up – radiant –
radiating kaleidoscope silver green;
sharp with life, ready and expectant.
Spreading its claim, pressing out the grass,
was a thistle born from last year's seed unseen.
From where had it blown here to outclass
the perennials of the turf? Its time
now come to arise from the meadow supreme,
preparing to host bug life full time.
Come July it will fuzz with purple
flowers as a crown for a victorious queen,
armed with many a prickled sepal.
Visited by suppliant insects
who set and array her seeds; a frothy scene
for finches' feast. Passing air extracts,
disperses the progeny abroad
to wherever to be ready, once more unseen
between the blades never overawed;
a tribute to the Creator Lord.
My head has known a thousand rests;
it has floated on feathered softness,
and silk curlicued with a silken tress;
been prickled by the grass of a meadow,
under a hung menagerie of clouds.
Into rumpled sheets of sand it has pressed,
and the sleepy valleys of maidens’ breasts.
On cold concrete pavement it has lain,
my senses by a drunken torpor slain.
It has been stood up by sleep,
on origami pillows made with coats,
the rugged terrains of sofa arms,
on bony cushions fashioned with my palms,
and gold threads needled into coats of arms.
My head has known a thousand rests,
but never the rapture of a dreamless nap,
till I laid it in the sweetness of your lap.
deranged snapshots of reality
full-moon's analytical quagmires
conceptualizing archetypes,
creating art of duplications
venturing prickled duplicity,
slapped me bout sideways
insinuated tacklin' romance,
uncompromising twist since
you thought me a maniacal *****
took a spin on the wily horizons
landed horizontal 'tween thighs
'twas a wee prick of somethin'
naught patter of heartbeats,
whitewashed the lunacy
off my derriere & cleavage
attempting to forget the
writing on the cosmos
when it beckoned me to
your teensy universe
It's Poppies, poppies o'er the land,
stuck fast to collars; prickled hands.
Blood red, emblazoned, filled with pride,
A poppies heart shall never hide!
Poppies, poppies; our best, our brave,
The fallen ones we could not save.
Instead, they marched ahead to cheers,
We love them always, shedding tears.
Poppies, poppies, share our feelings,
Standing tall, we pray for healing.
Fathers, Mothers, sons and daughters,
We stand for all; silent honour.
There was once a lady called Ms Jack
Who lived near a grass region called Tack.
When prickled by the grasses
On her way with her glasses.
She let down her glasses and her Jack.
For Andrea's "Show Me The Funny" Contest.
dear Judge
if you were me, would you do what I did
because of the roots of my hair
some shadowy gulf gods got hold of me
and they laughed while they held me
in the howling fjord where my grandfather
once mopped their bathrooms and my father became
himself Satan’s Cheerleader on their fields
till buckets of drafty sentiments took him away
my family has grown like prominent objects
held tight by the fingers of piggy fishy air
and after sad diagnostics they sizzled in volts
drowned in pickling fluids while their children
missed a mother’s love and her beans on Fridays
and forever they now wait to free their laughter
if you were me, would you do what I did
for centuries we’ve walked through a voiceless lawn
enshrouded by whirlwinds surging through nights
have you ever tasted our drafty sentiments for a day
I wish you did to know the burden of agony we carry
in the long sweep of human history
were you not there when certain nostrils prickled on pale
faces and they dug up false Darwinism sentiments at night
then they hoisted innocent frames between envy and hate
between man and beast between darkness and blindness
and the young frames blazed like a bonfire at Easter
if you were me, would you do what I did
honorable judge
why is it that all you know of me is Ben Craig
LATE AUGUST
It’s late August with Labor Day on my mind
Something sharp and indistinct is in the air
I sense it all along my prickled skin
My forehead in my hair
Kids would seem to play more frantically as though to say
“All is quit right after Labor Day.”
Denver always has a big parade
It’s really not for us
Men have traded guns for overalls
Tanks and silver helmets for baker’s builder’s trucks
The bands are poor and few plain-shoed players not too fine
The working men keep tipping hats walk in staggered lines
One good thing late August brings
A smell of football’s in the air
A roll on churchyard grass –
You’re tackled miss a pass
There are a few good things late August brings
To soften thoughts of school opening
BUT
Mother’s busy with needle and thread
A trip downtown
To Gano Downs
The dread “Back to School Sale”
The corridor is darkly invasive
usurpation knows not where it steers,
my nightgown caught on wildfire,
ending was indubitably a flimsy inferno
dreaming phantasma went up in smoke
i was flying naked in my captured head,
blissfully feverish in comfortable suffering
chose not to wake as you prickled slumber,
whilst functionally violaceous pain screamed
taking flight to swap business dealings
i could have opted out, your gray reluctantly
presented within Pandora's key predicament,
contracts were sealed, sensed a lethal attraction
twisted mid your tongue tied transactional eyes,
you presented an untimely shiny gem,
was hungry for anybody with a flaw
we cozied up on a nonchalant sofa
underneath blankets of complexity,
shared a hot cuppa mocha java delusion
spiked with combustible confusion,
dripping havoc like beaten egg whites on crack
handed over lockbox to a transfixed universe
awoken to find the bomb had dropped,
missed wily antagonism & landed pon converted uppers
heeded being so high up amid gallerias' artfulness
titanic nightmare sank beneath three hours indifference,
the machine was out of order, swallowed another pill
spellbound hot air balloon was carried away for safekeeping,
all that was perceptibly audible were familiar Pink tracks on twisted breezes
'shine on you crazy diamond'
'Sorta delusional dreaming...'
The sheriff had a visitor who growled like thunder,
a rabid dog, teeth bared trying to tear him asunder.
She howled that he'd attacked a member of her pack
Saying Mark was the aggressor and giving him flack.
She told him he'd listened to those who are wrong
then called him a troll, singing that same old song.
He replied to her comments, showing no disrespect
but her defense of that yobbo is hogwash that I reject.
She accused the sheriff of robbing PS of a great poet.
But all the real troll offered was trouble. We know it.
The doggie's heckling prickled me like a thorn or a spur
I won't miss that cowardly 'deleter,' that cocky old cur.
She can defend her crud bud any way she chooses,
but he will always be the one many of us accuses
of bullying, for each time he returns he reeks of ill will.
Hope we've seen the last of him and his snippety quill.
Alone the hunter-
walked through the frozen tundra.
His will a plunder.
The tireless snow-
Beat harder at his prowess.
Just to let him know.
He will not survive.
Fate now bore his destiny.
For life he would strive.
He fought to a crawl,
he was a hefty burden,
glaring through his shawl.
He would have to yield.
He had not the strength to fight,
the stormy the field.
He ceased to his knees,
Looking through the frigid wind,
flinching from its breeze.
Yet a fever wisp—
brushed atop his algid nose,
and prickled his lips.
Hope had come to him,
And so his strength had returned.
He bested the grim.
He did not note,
he’d been a pawn of fate—
destiny and hope.
A pawn of their game,
a play in which we are moved,
how they fit, the same
Shivers all over the atmosphere
Fevered by a bizarre spirit
Enrobbed in a shroud of grey, hovering
In the dry weird hemisphere
Within the graveyard curtain of mist
And lurking behind the skeletal frames of trees!
Have you too seen the ghost?
Or have you not felt it when it appears?
There it hovers freely in a whirl
Through the ambience of December
And causes the skin to whiten and shiver
And eyes wide open with expectation
And the hairs prickled with anxiety!
There it goes and vanish...here beside
It has cast a spell of Dementia
On a young man Mr. Jones, being alone
Maybe because he has no wife with him
No lover, no money and more so
He could not be with his family
Who will regard him as a Nobody!
It also bewitched with melancholy and frailty
Abandoned and unprotected children
Orphaned in homes without soup or bread.
It curse too those whose tables are full
And go on spree of extravagance
With swell of recklessness and vanity!
thumb tacked , tackled some say by the thumb,
a
bullied pencil pusher sitting upright at mid afternoon.
so thin his ergonomic spinal robot as he leans back
in his plastic office chair.
peering around the corner, around the darkened tan
hedges of the cubicled garden.
now the carpet does not have thorns but the walls
have thier prickled memo tacks.
the aroma of a polynesian wilderness steams
off of a coffee pot down the isle.
he leans back further to a tipping point,
he has a sense of expectation.
on the wall there is a clock with very
ordinary numbers and hands.
he watches them and drifts a little around the
room to evade the god of all square candled boxes.
he loses himself momentarily in a thinly cast shadow
from a window three cubicles down.
like an ethereal black drape it reaches out to him with
dilicate fingers it breaks up the mundane spaces.
just outside of its grasp a silver cord shimmers,
a tiny spider spins its fibrous faith carefully.
its diligent silk web hung along the ceiling
simple as a puritan church.
Professor Petal, one of Patrick’s prolific pals,
Professed he had a Pollyanna Predisposition
Properly pronouncing pronouns without perky p’s.
A pithy proclivity, providing pollution to Professor Petal’s pronunciations.
Prissy Professor Patty from Prestigious Prussian Planet Philisophi-university,
Precariously prickled, privately at Professor Petal’s Pronoun-predicament.
Prissy Patty promptly planned a plane trip to Professor Petal’s Pre-existing pub.
Where placidly placed, Professor Petal, prevailed as President of Porous Pool Table Pro.
Privacy prevailed, as Professor Patty, presently at Pub, perceived Professor Petal.
Prissy Patty, partook of Paradise Pop-In-Pink Parboils, as she patty-caked in the pub.
Prissy Patty was soon pretty Patty, and Petal took her home, a primed and perfect professor.
Plenty of preemptive laughs prevailed, as they both wondered what pronoun begins with a P anyway?
Time is ticking by faster
And the clock hangs off the edge
But my mind doesn't move as quickly
It's blocked by a deadened hedge
You say that time is precious
And I believe it all too well
I wish I could make things more certain
But some things God will never tell
Eyes as bloodshot as roses
And ears that are prickled with thorns
I await the coming sunrise
Amidst my body's scorns