Best Shudder Poems
I SHUDDER TO THINK
I shudder to think about the way
Some vegetables are abused every day -
With physical and psychological slights
In gross violation of their vegetable rights.
Handicapped vegetables have no chance to fight back
Like eyeless potatoes - poor blind mites,
And baby carrots , aaw! Or peas-in-a-pod,
Eaten before they’re even born and take a breath.
Imagine those frantic runnerbeans
Desperately trying to escape.
No surprise that peas are strained.
My over-tired mum used to say, “Oh, I’m shredded.”
So I understand how tired shredded-cabbage must feel.
What about the potatoes who diced with death and lost?
Jerusalem Artichokes - “chokes” is horrible!
Why not “Jerusalem Passes Aways” ?
And ”Squash” ! - Please speak more politely:
What a way to go - we should say “Press Lightly”.
No wonder some clean-living veg are angry :
Parsnip - an angry snip from parson or clergy;
Swede resembling a tall blond person, Stockholm based;
With horrid ethnic humour ( bad taste)
Like sauerkraut (also bad taste)
(So-called humour about a surly German).
Look at insults basd on vegetables for a human -
“The IQ of a cabbage.” What ethnicity insults !
I’m sorry for tomatoes - all this veg talk results
In them being called a vegetable dish
It’s like calling Scots people English.
Sheer vegetable racism is the worst. Mixed potato and carrot salad?
Not in apartheid South Africa – their salad had to be pallid.
Oh yes some veg are spoiled like children :
Coddled cauliflower warmed in milk ; then
Brazed egg-plants (please call snobby ones aubergines)
Suntanned slowly at their leisure;
And butter (not margarine) beans cooked with pleasure.
It’s too horrible entirely, the abuse is complete
I’ll stop being vegetarian, and start eating meat.
Winter
I feel nothing
your icy kiss
leaves me numb
your raw coat
of shifting winds
leaves me frigid
isolated
in the cold
I shudder.
A bum called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter.
The passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads to mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to cleanse the lanes, to rid the road of clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.
the wheel is squealing, grinding, and peeling
rubber off the tire in a wheelie some real heat
some friction slipping losing your grip and
your sense of conviction censor conniptions
but you can't hold this down eternal
fit on the paper then center re-word those
free bird poems, odes, and flows
we birth woes, and broken bones
deter foes from our pleasure and treasure
paradoxes to measure its measure
whether this weather gets better or never
we can shut all the shutters and shudder together
Among the blooming jasmine
you have no shadow,
but breath,
which pulses.
The dusk is meek—
the dream of a child
fallen asleep by his dad
(after a long story)
the sound of arriving summer
in a winding seashell.
Hug your knees
and you will hear:
“The life given to us
we lived for different
reasons …”
And the sea stayed
in circles.
Sank in between
the matte stars
(in the marble).
We’re left with a long road
toward hope.
Shudder—
beyond.
“Quiver”--how soft it glides ‘tween lips and teeth,
It almost feels like breathing in a wreath;
I can’t find words that can sound as tender
Except, possibly, “flower” and “whisper.”
“Quiver”--how opposite the image it brings:
Both unpleasant and delightful feelings;
Like a sore bee sting that gives the shudder,
Or a lover’s touch that makes one shiver.
A pretty thing makes one quiver with joy,
Another quivers in anger at a ploy.
One quivers, too, on witnessing horror,
But others quiver at a good humor.
“Quiver”--what a contradictory term!
It may draw a smile or may make one squirm:
A gentle breeze that does shake the flowers,
Or raging winds that come with rain showers.
A harp’s, or guitar’s, or violin’s strings
Must quiver before music can take wings;
But when the earth quivers, how great the fright
As walls come falling no matter the height.
April 1, 2023
Among 2nd Place
Writing Challenge - ‘Q’ Words Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
I am Monday on a Friday,
Who knew the stars aligned to sing us through the pangs of life and eternity?
A thing called life in a language in a dialect that is as probable and functional as the click of the tongue of the Kung Bushmen.
Who knew time could exist as un-linear as Einstein spryly suggested
There exist no up, no down
Space has no direction but we have a faith in chronicity.
You look like happiness over there at this juncture of time and space where we intersect.
I have weeks in me, days in me that plod along like Sisyphean years that blur into one another
Gifted years that paradoxically seemed to have whipped past me as does a freeze-frame stop motion film
You can see it now from a passenger train window whirring by a picket-fence
With such velocity with such proximity as to lend to the illusion of Time’s shudder.
A picket fence with boards punched out like the stars puncture the deep black “night” sky that give faux symbolism in the likes of what we call hope.
THE 12 SPIRIT WITCHES OF SHUDDER VIEW MIST 2019/01/20
Was the address given to us, and was betwixt
Tall trees whose branch’s looked like shadows
Lightening made them look like monsters affixed,
Hanging dead, and the immediate thunder chose
To shriek and a scream, a sound all in one
Wave after wave like a machine gun!
Tim spotted the manor, dark, which looked like hell,
We nervously approached and rang the bell.
A grey haired woman, at least an age of a hundred year,
Opened, do come in, we are busy regaining our youth,
Stay and watch, see dark magic with babies, learn the truth!
You wrote to us, wanting to meet us, we are spirits, this fear,
She thrust a knife deep into a baby’s heart, not a sound,
Baby had been drugged, blood spilled all around,
The witches threw their bundles on the ground,
Slurped up the blood like maddened dogs, chanting
The more important one, scooped up more blood, decanting ,
It into a bowl, we had to get out of this haunted, horrible manor,
Frenzied, I grabbed Tim’s arm and ran, throwing a spanner
Into their plans, we had been there all night, the babies would die,
I prayed fervently to Our Divine, looking high into the sky.
Tim had phoned the cops and mom and dad, dad was a tough guy,
They ran in, rescued the remaining 11 babies, and shot the witches,
Who not human, crumpled into dirt, and thrown into ditches!
Entered in" One Night In A Haunted Manor Poetry Contest"
“Our time in this world is limited. We all have to die.
But man, who is fragile wishes- it is not now but later” ~ By Poet
Death’s thunderous call I hear.
See death’s messenger at my door.
With icy grip, he is coming to prey.
Am I nearing my journey’s end?
I don’t want to go with all my dreams snuffed.
I am a flower, still blooming.
Please don’t rip my roots,
While still searching for light.
Let me dwell with my loved ones.
Now, please don’t keep death’s door ajar!
Scenes perform in mind
As an antique movie play
Stir dormant feelings
Shivering skin with intense
Earthquake and volcano scale
5-4-2016
Feel the slight tremor grow into a judder
then the slides begin to announce her coming
with the water bath and blast,
keep your mind together, fear not; just wonder.
An earthquake.
feel the slight shiver grow into a shudder
then the pulsing heart announces her coming
with the blood flush and flash
keep your mind together, fear not; just ponder
A mind quake.
We suffer death but once,
the quake passes leaving fear and pain in her wake.
I am not what I used to be.
Becaise you changed something.
Something that makes me a different person.
Today.
Last night,I saw you again sitting on a tree.
Your eyes filled with fear and sadness.
Sadness that made me emphatic again.
You held my hand as those cold fingers lingered around my waist.
I shudder..
I asked what are you doing here.
But you didn't say a word.
You keep on looking at the shining moon glistening above us.
As tears started running down your cheeks.
I didn't expect that you would react like this.
Because these past nights,your heart is like a stone..
Too hard to break.
But now,I could hear the sniffs coming from your nose.
I don't wanna see you like this.
But I can't help to get closer every time I am with you.
I felt the warmth as your arms embrace mine.
You cupped my cheeks as I watch your eyes with pain.
"I'm scared"
You whispered into my ears.
"From?"
I asked as I stroked your hair.
"Losing you."
After that,I felt the sweet taste coating all over her mouth coming from your lips.
I feel safe..
I feel blessed..
I feel loved..
everything is a division
lol is it my mission
to balance the scales
A shudder, a tremble,
hearing a screech.
Was it that chalk again -
on that board or this wall?
We tend to hear things
at the strangest of times:
midnight, noon, three-seventeen.
But seven minutes to ten?
Hmm. That's an odd time.
It may come again tomorrow.
But what is weird is that
it will come yesterday.
Yet I knew nothing of that till today.
We have the strangest of brains.
(Aug 2022)
“19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?” James 2:19,20 NIV
Even demons believe and shudder;
They have no lack of belief.
But their belief won’t save them
For they’ve refused God’s truth.
Faith without deeds
Is no faith at all.
Demons are a testimony—
Like a pack of cards will fall.
Faith requires deeds
To show that faith exists.
Faith with appropriate action
Is of what true faith consists.
Just to believe;
No better than a demon.
Faith without deeds
Is merely faith abandoned.
Action was mixed with faith
When Caleb and Joshua went into Canan
By faith and faith alone
Didn’t agree with God’s abandon.
They saw the giants dwelling there
But believed that with God’s power,
Canaan could be conquered,
Through their mighty deliverer.
By faith we must stand
With God and God alone
Trust in His mighty power
To take us to His throne.
Demons believe and shudder
Because faith they do not fathom.
We must combine actions with faith
To see God’s miracles so awesome.
© Copyright 2008-2012 Maureen LeFanue