Best Quaking Poems
We are the high altitude sentinels.
Our small groves freckle the high plains.
We keep to ourselves, mostly
upon the snow burdened peaks
where our ashen trunks blend
and our barren branches cling
to icy white glitter.
As the breath of winter ebbs
we watch the crystal spring run-off
growing ever greener with envy
of how it races down the hill; babbling.
We whisper this to one another
in the crisp mountain air, solemn
as we keep watch.
From our station on the precipice
we behold fully the majestic sun
revering at dusk how it paints the sky.
In the failing warmth of autumn,
we offer in turn, our own reflection of
magnificent golden sunset skies
in our shimmering yellow foliage.
We keep company with pines,
firs, spruces, and other prickly sorts.
Conifers aren’t social, which suits us
as we keep mostly to ourselves.
Sentinels must remain vigilant, after all,
watchful for approaching danger.
We quake from paranoia, probably.
Our bark is pale, above all, for fear.
We’ve seen your kind before.
Your kind we watch most carefully.
If you look close, you will see
from our thousand dark eyes
we always look closely back at you.
Are you dangerous?
08/21/15
Submission for contest: Trees Personified
Hosted by: Charlotte Jade Puddifoot
*I loved the aspens when my family would go camping in the high Uinta mountain range in Utah. They are beautiful and they can grow at such high elevation (above 10,000 ft) it's really amazing.
Unheeded in the spread of his name, quaking
Through the knit brow cuddling the sombre eye
Twice buckled into the couch of his yearning
The mouldy cast of unsculptured hands, moulting
In the surging sweaty cries' unexpected sigh
Sooner lost than won with unrenewed longing
Every day, every night in chastened haste, calling
That one face, one hand trembling on bosomy thigh
Through all the twigs of his knotty brooding
Mighty log in the dismembered chips, raking
In uneasy orgasms of a protracted lie
The woman clasped in the memory revolting
Fleshy hair to press, hovering nostrils, drinking
In the incensing vapours, and that face a wry
Screaming in the rubbing spasm, a bloody cursing
All, all and more, and the biting shame, clawing
Now at the name, silently growing, that shy
Child of old hopefully shared and lingered moaning
© T. Wignesan, 1960, first pub. in "Forum Academicum", University of Heidelberg, 1957 (from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)
Pure filth in the sick terrain of disease
amoeba,bacteria gnawing on carrion putrid
smelling awful the fetid wafts captured noses
puissance in resistance aided by gear little
toll was heavy like a hammer of God.
Sins overgrew like wild moss the citylines
many had looted gravely many others of toe to hairs
yet others had ditched several in rat holes of despair
raped with fierceness so brute that victim felt killed for years
purloined so skillfully, that heist remained unknown to official years
killed and tilled the intestines of many
they were lying in river bed fanny
earning dough was a zero sum game
they erased yours and put their name
living on the margin like a zombie dead
did you have the courage left that you always had.
Cycle had moved a round and done turnabout
earth shook and took all it could get
nature was shaking the societal glass
where scum had gathered thick at bottom
as it threatened to have the pure also pretty rotten
quaking in anger and seeth the plates moved and moved
the evil empires were down and razed, seeking insurance claims
they had to build again the regimes ,ugly and bad
good guys got a deal out of destruction and death
as they went about collecting the carcasses of all
You heard them mumble in bated breath toll:
Pure filth in the sick terrain of disease
amoeba,bacteria gnawing on carrion putrid
smelling awful the fetid wafts captured noses
puissance in resistance aided by gear little
toll was heavy like a hammer of God.
TV channel shutter bags clicked mad......the quake tragedy ..nobody bothered to check the
social and criminal background of those dead....vis a vis their real activities-which were
largely unknown ,anyways!
A willow trembles in the breeze
And stoops in awe as angels sneeze;
Quaking feebly to its knees,
Bending, doleful, if you please.
A day, as this, when squalls blow wild
The willow cries ~ as like a child;
Deserted, sad, forlorn, beguiled,
And all aloof, left out, exiled.
Now her branches droop away
Blenching down throughout the day;
Keeping blusts of gusts at bay
Harboured from the rainy spray.
Underfoot a lonely duck
Shelters in a babbling brook,
Dabbling in a shady nook
Safe and sound, her haven took.
Then above the daylight seeps,
In the sky the sunlight peeps;
She, thankful for the faith she keeps
The trembling willow gently weeps.
As I look up, I wake up,
I hear sudden sound
The voices they call me
When no one’s around
I stand here and listen
As softly they speak
For everyone’s laughing
At something unique
I don’t quite know
As I restlessly gape
How you can take it
That cruel stricken face
I love you it says
As we wait undisturbed
I miss you and hate you
And fake you it serves
What do you do when love comes unaware?
What can you do except tremble with...
Why do you quake?
Fear or excitement, breath or flame?
Here is the door
Here are the people
Open my heart
And see how it…
Bleeds, Burns, Craves, Yearns.
Life.
Hope.
Honor.
Lust.
Licking blood, as our fate turns to dust.
Run, run, run from the outbreak of quaking terror,
but where can you go or hide because it's not done.
Trapped, in bitter anguish, hands cuffed behind your back,
it’s taken your pride, you'll remember forever.
The locust has been released from its amber cage,
reproducing, scatter millions, killing slowly
igniting a Molotov cocktail round beings
with its infected poison sting convulsing rage.
People are feeling pain from the quaking terror.
3/19/2020
Surely there was some mistake!
This couldn’t really be a quake!
I know one person – not a joke –
Who thought he’d suffered from a stroke.
But no, the experts did unveil
5.7 on the Richter scale,
With tremors up and down the coast;
Virginia seemed to get the most.
New Yorkers seemed the most surprised.
We haven’t been familiarized
With quakes like this since ’44,
And this one we could not ignore.
For many, ‘twas a brief distraction,
With surprise the main reaction.
Life returned to normal, fast;
Could-have-been thoughts do not last.
Yet we think of others struck
Who didn’t have our same good luck.
Nothing really quite predicts
How Mother Nature gets her kicks.
Any qualms, quaking aspen
In shading a graveyard?
"No; not when, worn and wrinkly
My own pride discard!"
first quivering shy hello regrets quaking - last goodbye unfolds
12/20/2018
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