Best Tentacled Poems
Refrain
You shimmering waves on the ocean blue
Dance not again, he cannot dance with you
You weeping forests where the winds wail too
Let your bright tears fall in the pool of dew
The world of pop will never be the same again
The king is dead, and life is a dream so vain.
Do you ask me why does my sorrow flow so
Endlessly for him? Is he not gone the way
Of men that many went before? O I do know
My time may not be long, and lessons delay.
Who do think was the man in the mirror? did
You see us there, did you know it oppressed him
When like wanton dogs drugged and rabid
Went heedless along the callous way being dim.
Look at the dance videos again, tell me
You see the what he begs to beat it. Off the wall
Are shadows falling like an inner expose
Where he internalized the world, and yet did call
In many songs - his troubled world was us
But now the king's sun set to dust, and we
Remain to heed and weep the vanity of lust
The tangled truths of out tentacled history!
Michael was God's gift to our season, and how I
Wish he would dance for me across the tribal plains
Of Africa again, where warriors ride in the sky
Through the fire make us brothers without chains
A global oneness where dreams deny the child
Nothing again. O death, what oneness beyond this
Can we find? Treat him kindly there, be mild
To him who in this troubled life knew no bliss.
Michael I miss you; O genius, sleep now in peace
The storms of life are over, the lightning ends
And droughts will come again, but I'll never cease
To proclaim your virtues to foes and friends;
Sleep beloved. Your glory stream in summer's eye
And Harlem's street are filled, old men remember
And old women interrupt their planning to cry
Farewell, Michael ... the grandest star is but an ember.
Aged Osage;
twisting, turning,
tentacled specter of the soil;
centuries of thrills, you have seen.
Gnarly old fingers,
still reach for brother sun’s embrace
and you share your elation freely.
Stories told in limb and bough,
are road maps through time;
I see that history,
can hide nothing from you.
I listen to your whispers;
I hear your songs,
on the tempestuous winds.
What a study in tolerance you are!
Arthritis specter in the moonlight;
Story teller of old;
I visit and am inspired.
Trees, like humans, have wisdom to share
and tell their stories to those,
willing to listen and learn.
An education is found in every tiny seed.
FROM SUNSET TO SUNRISE
Her clinging mermaid-figure, auburn hair - french braid-chaste.
Pearl’s arms circumnavigate his nautical-neck. Strong arms gird her waist.
His hands, like the current, draw her in. She inhales with fingers laced.
Like the sublime shoreline, their outlines traced.
Water and sand swirl around their feet, hearkening to the flautist-tide.
Pearl’s arms circumnavigate his nautical-neck. Strong arms gird her waist.
The sky, stars, and moon vanish - in a lover’s cove, they hide.
Recognized with a full-moon revelation - no disguise,
She is likely to drown in the whirlpool of his eyes.
With the whispers of his high-tide love, she does rise,
Answering in kind - breathing in and out her replies,
As their lifetime stretches from sunset to sunrise.
The aquamarine of Pearl’s eyes match her swimming gown.
She is likely to drown in the whirlpool of his eyes,
Snatched by the undercurrent, of her lover’s seaweed crown.
The shrieking seagull o’erhead, her memory recalls.
The darkened lighthouse, stronghold sinking, falls.
Feet weeping on serrated shells, his footprints lost in sandy halls.
His sea-drenched bodysuit, her frightened squalls.
Inlet eyes, stained red, revere venomous jellyfish - tentacled balls.
A shallow survivor - her lover’s footprints she could not save.
The darkened lighthouse, stronghold sinking, falls.
She dives into the cold abyss of a mourner’s grave.
Pearl will find her eternal love, beyond the sun’s rays.
11/2/2017
Laura Loo’s Rhyme Time II Contest
Anteater's with their incredible 2 foot tongue
Bison their hides, one time under the gun
Cheetah's my, can they run
Dolphins bringing so much fun.
Elephants, Indian and African by the size of their ears
Fin Whales hunted, we share their fears
Giraffes so elegant long necked and tall
Hummingbirds hover, and never fall.
Insects, so varied in size and shape
Jackals howl as they relate to their mates
Kodiak, the island bears
Lobsters, caught, creeled and snared.
Mammoth, the awesome beast from the past
Nymph, insect larva's showing species may last
Octopus, tentacled dude of the sea
Plankton, the only food that is free.
Queen Bee, on the throne with her drones
Rhino with their keratin horns
Salmon living, return to spawn and die
Thrush, singing songs in tune as they fly.
Uakari, the Amazon new world monkey
Vulture's make the ground carrion free
Whippets a joy, as you watch them race
Xerus, the squirrel - the grounds his place.
Yak, the bovine of Himalayan heights
Zebra, white equids with their black stripes.
In hushed whispers, Mariners told stories,
Of a octopus like cephalopod creature;
With a tentacled beak and jet thrust power,
A creature as long as a school bus.
Scientists dismissed all this as just myth,
But they did admit that there may be;
Giant creatures roaming the dark, deep oceans,
However in 2007 one was netted.
The New Zealand trawler San Aspiring,
Fishing in the Ross Sea of Antarctica;
Netted something, 34 feet long, 1000 pounds,
A giant monster, it was a colossal squid.
But more amazing was that this female,
Was considered a comparative midget;
Colossal Squids can grown to 46 feet long,
They are the largest creatures on Earth.
Having the biggest eyes of any other animal,
The size of basketballs with huge pupils;
Also, it is said that they are highly aggressive,
Even attacking predators like Sperm Whales.
Gouges and battle scars on whales, unexplained,
The gigantic female, in a lab somewhere, frozen.
______________________
August 21, 2015
Verse
For the contest, Giant Animals
Honorable Mention
We four men raise our hands with blood lacerated to be written upon a book named doom. Whose words bring that which was grasped and phased into our minds by ghoulish men with scales in their hearts as they lead to the door. our deaths pass on to our sons. The first to be split into two the second to be faithful to the cosmic king. The third he stands behind the curtain. The fourth man and bat wrapped in flames stand in the middle. These brothers stand in the eye of the storm's tentacled threshold.
Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt, who died April 4, 1998.
Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.
What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.
Keywords/Tags: sunset, age, aging, death, grandfather, grandson, grandchild, family, grave, funeral, loss, twilight, night, heaven, transcendence, tribute
When Love And Dark Unite, A Shiny Tangled Web Catches Prey
There were hidden tentacles of hate in her heart
That her coils had not consumed me, I gave thanks
My soul nearly erupted, my mind suddenly went blank
Her touch was exciting, but frightening from the start.
She would serve me a great gulp of her poisonous brew
My hunger and thirst exploded, but I begged for more
There, in dark tides, my limp body washed ashore,
I was another roasted carcass for her blackened stew.
Waves washed beads of sand over me, around and about
I woke to see a smiling sky, laughing at my sad demise
I was but a damn fool, allowing her to have me as her prize
She kissed with thorny lips, smelled me with a bearded snout.
I lay waiting for dawn to tell me it was but a bad dream
Its gleaming rays would invade my brain and make it clear
My heart and soul were enslaved. I wallowed in woeful fear
She always dragged me in, convincing me we were a team.
I sensed night coming forth and dreaded the moon beams
This time her thorns pierced my lips, blinding me with lust
The temptation was too riveting. My body she had trussed
Her fingers soothed then strangled 'til I heard my own screams
Another bitter potion she'd concocted and lured me to drink
My breath came in short gasps as she searched my glazed eyes
Night hawks called, so I thought, but the trills were my own cries
I prayed to wake, but I swam in her dark waters, blacker than ink
Disgusted with my weakness. What kind of man had I become?
Tortured for want of the one who held hate within her heart
These thoughts meandered through my mind, tearing me apart
I must be strong to turn away and never more to her succumb
Another sunrise found me, my back flayed upon the beach
Rays of dawn warmed me before a salty wave slapped my face
I could not move, or would not move. In shame I was a disgrace
I walked into the ocean. In death I'd be out of her tentacled reach.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Robert,
thank you for asking me to reach into the dark a bit for this one.
I'm always honored to mingle my words with yours.
Sister Mary Catholic never tells a lie
Trust her in her order to be pure
Every word spoken under the habit screams
Penance requires suffering
Nuns are likely to be abducted
Taken aboard an alien ship for treatment
Bug eyed tentacled creatures travel through space
Looking for old ladies in long black robes with rosaries
Who simply accommodate the flavor of the day in prayers
Probes that don't always offer pleasure come with a price
She returns from beyond the stars not quite the same
Some orifices are considered sacred
Sacrifices must be made for science
Some times she cracks a smile while being violated
These heathens will be converted by her touch
A bar of soap to cleanse their awful breath
Scalding hot water to purify dirty filthy minds from sin
Is what religion requires for non human beings
Sister Mary tells her story to the priest
Who vows to keep her secret safe from outer space
George Fulwider
1837-1918
My beating-heart age,
Reached the half century mark,
When I and my “better second,”
Found hopeful roots,
And an oleander trellis,
On burgeoning Philadelphia street,
Here in this Quaker colony,
Of a thousand trees.
Our small wooded house was,
Most unfortunately,
Within earshot of the stately Union High School,
And its noisy ragamuffin minions,
And inescapably contiguous,
With the bustling tentacled trolley tracks;
Up and down they groaned,
With their loud clanging,
Every day and night the house shook,
As they rumbled on by,
Those modern moving monsters,
With steely grinding wheels,
Made ever alive by,
Those drat hanging wires,
Of killing electricity;
The doom of progress was upon us!
Oh, for the olden days!
The simpler times!
When life was for the strong and the smart,
Not like it was, when I,
Gasping for air in 1918,
Said goodbye to this silly modern world,
This long life,
This unending waiting game.
Now my restless stifled ghost,
Haunts the dark grounds here,
Roaming o’er the stones and the shadows,
At midnight when the wind dies,
Seeking still, a moment of hopeful silence, no,
An entire afterlife,
Of sweet heavenly golden silence,
Away from those modern moving steely monsters,
Those groaning grinding interlopers,
Of killing electricity;
The doom of progress is upon you!
Tiny Argonaut
Nurturing her eggs
In the paper thin
Shell
Formed by womb-fluids…
You carry your children
Bear the father of them
To worlds unknown to my kind…
Tentacled cephalopod
Ancient octane ancestor
You remain a mystery to me…
I am so glad
You grace my sea.
'Starfish!' said I, 'thing of a moray eel.'
Be it black ocean space;
Or in the breathing coral seas;
Back into my memories squiding;
To warn me about the sea turtle;
The cetacean coral reef crabbing;
Sharks and piranhas kidnapping;
I heard a tentacled, seagoing inking;
I wrote a story with the octopus pen;
I was a harbour porpoise and you a tuna sandwich;
The brokered bottlenose whale blossoming;
The sphinx moth singeing;
Only this and a sturgeon;
In there stepped a shovel nose 'whale shark';
In there stepped a 'lake trout.';
Dolphins lookout;
To warn me about the bluefin;
The foul flatfish forging;
All my soul within me gorging;
In there stepped a coral sea cucumber;
I have dreamed of the spadefish;
An echo murmured back the word, 'channel catfish!';
The brook trout smiled;
I felt compelled to sniff the squid;
Smells like fish;
It was squish;
Take thy bluegill from out my heart;
Embrace the wish;
Starfish
6/20/20
WRITTEN WORDS BY James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
Monster Trees
Monster trees reaching down through insane skies like spiders,
They see something coming in the green benign stretches,
We are the onion ring bearers wearing dark-day secrets.
We know what happens when bearded eyes shut tight,
When the dead wave from hearses designed for blind drivers,
As the hatchet girls crawl into the blast barges of mindless ropery,
Monster trees with long tentacled arms scoop up the night cats.
They reach for berries made of balsa wood and Melba toast;
They reach down from far distances seizing innocent souls crawling,
These ghost trees, floating as life clouds, through memory and time;
Through deserted forgotten neighborhoods with skeleton trellises.
We are the lettuce turners, the meat shredders, with raised hopeful fists.
Wearing chiffon camisoles made with Melba toast and dark-day secrets,
The hatchet girls raise lapping glasses of mad rum to the blast barges.
Harpoon Loouey - Pseudonym Pen Bukowski
although just a pint size Notre Dame
hunched quarter back
with rock solid state frame
Pen (short for pennilessness),
a generic cents less game
some dime a dozen
day late dollar short left lame
leg quarter back
reminisced to the regular name
mass a chew sitz
bay thing ghosts of shame
full gory days his
unbridled victories on the grid
iron, what he lacked in stature,
he more than hid
as stealth weapon
compensated as air tight lid,
when getting hold of pigskin
grasped for dear life
after he instantaneously
morphed into octopus squid
as his tentacled suction-cupped fingers
dug into the thick
leather as if going
on whale'n expedition
after he did slick
his harpoon, this smirking,
eponymous, notorious,
and villainous sea sunned
marine monster (he proudly and quick
lee happily posed atop cetaceous creature
moments prior to prick
king the infamous Moby Dick,
which briny deep exploits landed him a gig
as one super (albeit pint sized) athlete,
plus adept at performing an Irish jig,
whence (by George) his polymath
"Twinkle Toes" Shaw man ship agility
spread be yon male pig
former and latter noms de plumes
hash-tagged, and etched
on his tombstone after 'til rig
or tenon mortise peri wig
gulled last living breath of salty air
after exhausting simony lick kits bare
meanwhile, forever refining
blubbering profane words crystal clear
aware that his demise could occur,
perhaps during exploit far out to sea
with salty water everywhere,
thus this thick raunchivist
Sea surreal in darkest nets
Nocturnal-ness in jaws and tentacled breasts
still the thrill, breathless at my thoughts
the sea - a catch
The sea a catch, oh my stars
that settle like flickering candles
on tremulous waves
The sway, the dance, oh
the romance of candlelight
aboard the deck of dopamine
I resist the thought
that I’m in-between
cruise ala royal dreams
The drift of ebb and flow
I fly so slow, slipping
undertow, envisioning
serpents and maids
I’m made for the sea
See my tales splash
flibberty-thrashing
about in a net
netting the seashell gold
of surf and turf
sweet sands that tug
my eyes and heart
I blink
back tears
When will we see each other
‘gain, this match
of tenderness and angst
Let the torrents roar
Let the sides capsize
Let me touch your silkiness
your depths
your traps
of playfulness. The reader
must think me silly
as I surrender to the crests
and climb aboard
to see the sea
and sky collide
I’m given over
and under
in thunderous claps
to sated and salted
direct attack
of anything that might arrest
my joy
my exploration
my destination
my ploy
to dream without danger…