Best Startled Poems

Her garden faeries were more delicate than she remembered
She delighted in their frolicking playfulness and sense of fun
One flew pretty close to her face, almost touching her nose
She smiled, loving the attention they were giving to her this May

A man’s voice frightened them. They were...

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A floral blanket of silence
Lies out across the desert

Nothing moves-not air
Nor trees
       Nor blades of grass

The ogre’s breath is held
Suspended, then expelled

Stomping his feet,
Flashing his eyes,
Grumbling, the ogre

Blows
And, grumbling, cries
Fat sheeted tears –

Trees quickly bow
Shaken green heads as
The silent...

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Tonight winter startled

It came unexpectedly

Few people walked 

Below the gleam moon

Shivering beneath their fur coat

I stood trying to figure 

A black contorted portrait 

Drawed from the yellow dim lamp

On a cold brown dune

Which I stared

As they passed

Waving a friendly gesture

Greeting me with unknown tongue

Still I...

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Through the fog, I see shadows.
Silhouettes of people or spirits.
Like the cat that scampers when startled.
Without haste I hide behind the sofa....

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"J'adore le genre de personne d'avoir 
 une maison pleine de canines!

Vouloir glissent sur les nuages 
 en Berlin!

Pour les nuages me guidera - 
 vers un nouveau chemin!

Les Montagnes et les vol qui 
 me guide...

Les nuages et le vol qui
 me guide..."...

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The hailstones pounded the window
as violently,as if they had minds
bent on killing;soldiers in rows and ranks rushing onwards;
as each fell another and another took its place.
Cold and mathematical they had a simple precise force and geometry.
Into this warlike scene,floated two white butterflies
Crossing and recrossing the...

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Let me be open to be startled
to let the unexpected in,
to be surprised, astonished, shocked,
wide open to action happening in peripheral view.
Let me be open to strangeness
by looking for difference and oddity
with laser cutter eyes 
slicing away the clutter
of mundane sameness.
Let me be startled by...

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Startled
In the dark I fight for air
puzzled
at my sight I gaze with fear

numbed
with my mind 
slumped
to their kind

quiver 
in my being
shiver 
what I have been

wrestled
from him
strangled I slim

am petrified
I wait
stupefied
on me he weight

he thrust his hand dip
in my bag
I slip
I drag

At me he pounce
and bands
In...

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A Flock of Startled Birds

He had sat for an hour on a long, low, flat rock,
He had checked himself over from bald patch to sock.
His leather shoes burnished to a mirror-like shine,
Tie ironed flat – a perfect straight line.
Trouser legs spotless, each one like a...

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An acquaintance 
and former neighbor 
I haven't seen for eons 
sneaks up and 
excitedly grips 
my shoulders from behind. 

The sudden jolt 
of electricity 
that was his hands!
Oh, he got my attention alright!

He scared the dickens 
out of me
I'm not gonna lie!
Not that I held...

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Pavlov got it right I feel, conditional behaviour we never seem to lose

This one revisits sometimes for me and dog, but over time it seems to weaken

Last year we walked away from our previous life, only a few scars for both mostly external

We are lucky,...

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startled fox turns with his fluffy tail down
His fur he wears like an amber kingly gown
Against the forest wall, he gives so much color
Hiding in the thicket is his older brother
His teeth have barely come in, he is a baby
Will he run off like a...

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Were Startled and Cringed

We had become startled  and then cringed,
Loser Trump lashed out and was unhinged;
We would wonder,
About his thunder;
His stupid hair looked ugly like it is singed.

Jim Horn...

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I lay in my bed
On my side of the room
And sigh deeply
He has to be asleep now
It's so late
I hear him groan
Maybe not...
Has he been waiting for me?
I can't believe I'm here
Alone
With him
Sure we are on far ends of the room
But so close
Alone
Can I really...

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Black
silence
wakes me up
spooky feeling
my heart beats eighty miles an hour

who and where I am does not register
hyper hearing
kicking in
fast heart
fear

noise
sudden
startles me
outside door creaks
too paralyzed to run I wait for it...

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