Best Tuft Poems
A is for Annie Apple Blossom she buds in the Spring.
B is Betty Baby Breath she's such a dainty thing.
C is for Miss Candy Tuft pink-cheeked with hair of gold.
D is Debbie Dandelion who never does what she's told!
E is for Easter Lily she's as white as snow.
F is Francie Fairy Bells who ring-a-lings where she goes.
G is for Ginny Gardenia perfumed oh so sweet.
H is Holly Hocks a Tomboy, she has two left feet!
I is for Inca Lily dressed in colors light.
J is Joanie Jump-Ups, Johnny's little sister bright.
K is for Katie Kangaroo Paw her nails are painted red.
L is Lila Lady Slipper who stays too long a bed.
M is for Merry Morning Glory dressed in pale blue.
N is Nancy Narcissus who trumpets ""toodeloo!"
O is for Olivia the Ox-Eyed Daisy dolly.
P is Patty Petunia, her pancakes are a folly.
Q is for Queenie Anns Lace her dresses all have ruffles.
R is Ruby Rose-a-lee who almost always shuffles.
S is for Sandy Snap Dragon tall and thin. petite.
T is Tallulah Tulip her clothes are so off beat!
U is for Uma Umbrella Flower, sweet and sunny.
V is Vicky Violet she plays with Easter bunnies.
W is for Wendy Water Lily she'd rather swim than dance.
X is Xana Xmas Tree in Winter she's entrancing.
Y is for Yani Yarrow, a girl so bonny fair
Z is Zelda Zinnia, she pinning Yani's hair.
All our girls are fine and strong, so beautiful and brave
Not a single one of them would think to misbehave!
Bio: Wise woman.
I shiver beneath a frozen sky of milky gray and white
and like a little rabbit whos barely grown into his coat
I linger in the forest bristling like a dry piece of wood
I was detached from my father like a youngling discomfit
I come from a prideful bush of green but its not who I am
settling down under, on a large tuft of mulch
I am the last living acorn settled no longer in the air
but when Autumn sings her song of mellifluous swell
I seem to outlast every flower of her time
Life is but a series of spurts, growths, windy dances
let it be said, " the apple doesn't fall far from the tree"
but neither does the acorn as far as the eye can see
I shiver beneath a frozen sky of milky gray and white
I'm not a blade of grass, nor an eagle, nor an elk
I am an acorn with a little french beret, …
April 17, 2020
The most social thing on earth
Social than the Social Networking Sites
Tall with straight uniform trunk
Unbranched trunk topped with a
Tuft fanlike or featherlike leaves.
Cresting with a plume of long feathery fronds
Making a graceful silhouette of unique beauty
With spiral arrangement of its wood fibers
Which makes it a tree of unusual suppleness and strength
Large evergreen leaves
With bundles of vascular tissue
Scattered throughout the trunks.
Abundant throughout the tropics
And thrive in almost every inhabitat therein
The quintessential image of relaxed and elegant lifestyle
A good friend in need,
A good friend indeed
Because of its versatility,
Many people cannot do without it.
Having as many uses as the year has days.
And noted for productivity in the bible
Imagine the way it comes to its full bearing
After ten to fifteen years on earth.
And still continue to bear for nearly a hundred years.
Of great economic importance,
Providing food, fibre, wine and oil
Widely used in landscaping for its exotic appearance
A useful ornamental tree
This social palm tree
The clearest blue became mottled with age,
and I only recently began to notice.
Time-soaked eyes, foggy mirror to my own,
reflecting a frail wire, just out of reach.
Leading to a skull-shaped cellar,
therein lay the contents, shadows,
wavering in small glimmers of truth.
Reserved but yearning, they call to me.
Whispers carress my lobes;
they are phantoms you have carried.
They ride on waves of joy and anguish,
snapshots of my tiny feet trodding down halls,
chasing cats with remote-control race cars.
Then I tumbled over a carpeted ledge
and bent your office-drawer key.
Maybe you'd suspected those young paws
were much stronger than they looked.
As time sped all around me, your atmosphere grew thin,
and labored breathing stole the spark from your limbs.
When cells began to replicate like narcissists in the West,
your hovel became a war zone, and I, a refugee.
You never caught your breath in the wreckage,
and when a second bout of war came, your lungs gave out.
I watched it happen, at a loss.
I remember your mouth agape, eyes glazed, wide,
as, in your final breath, you ran towards something I could not see.
Now, the battleground you once crawled through
has been cleared of every trace, every tuft of dog hair,
and all the shining documentation to prove you were an artist.
And how you were an artist, having sculpted so much of my
lanky willow limbs, my dense, ferocious heart.
I have a case of survivor's guilt.
I am writing every day a mystery, wading through
my own metaphysical mess, only faintly aware of yours,
the stuff that lingers like shadow people,
darting in and out of my peripheral vision.
I only wish they'd speak to me and
divulge what last you saw, or that I could
re-activate your smart phone and read
the very last text message you sent.
The giraffe
Haughty and fond of herbivorous feasts,
Tends to look down on his wee fellow beasts.
The elephant
Thin outer ears are gargantuan-sized,
Tickling the ivories isn't advised.
The pelican
Genus of water-bird with a long beak,
And in his throat there is food for a week.
The crocodile
Don't you be fooled by his sad, tearful eyes
He's out to get you - it's just a disguise.
The zebra
Sports a moheccan style tuft on his head
And he wears stripey pyjamas to bed.
The panda
Never one fazed by what's wrong or what's right,
Tends to see everything in black and white.
The kangaroo
He lives 'down under'- Australia's pride
With little Joey who's there for the ride.
The zoo
All of these creatures hang out at the zoo
Feeding time heralds a hullabaloo!
04/11/18
Chartreuse moss insinuates itself
into cracked brick as leprous eucalyptus
line the path, fallen leaves contorted
into coral spines on weathered terra cotta.
Traveling between the trees I stumble
upon one sinewy stalk in a lithe tuft
heralding the second coming of a lily.
May's slate gray
muffles the air until I hear
the chameleon trill
of a mockingbird.
Timeless lyrical,
compassionate dance,
a shifting effect
of light and color,
the glowing full moon
conducts in folk tune.
Indispensable
distant humble stars
spring a russet, sign.
White unfolded wings
flitter wayward round
a rhythmic beating
in shadow, chill, air.
The spike tuft ears owl
melodies hooting,
influence passion.
A lovers' heartbeat
keeping steady rhythm.
A starlight guides the
way by windswept night.
after “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (also sometimes called “Daffodils”) by William Wordsworth
I wandered weightless as a feather,
a muted plume from mourning dove.
A tuft afloat in breezy weather
connected now to skies above;
as long as winds will carry me
from over fields and out to sea.
My glad esprit more free than birds,
detached from mortal needs I fly,
where spirits long to share their words
among the songs in clouds, I sigh...
for Earth was never this composed,
this high I travel unopposed.
Oh cumulus, a meadow white,
I feel at home atop your waves
illuminant, in purest light.
Mid savored heights my mem’ry saves
inertia of the clover green
and shiver of the water’s sheen.
Such riches now I do enjoy
in solitude away from fray.
I'm free from living once so coy;
in spirits’ realm I long to stay,
for then, myself I will fulfill
with gild as gold as daffodil.
Within the realm of dreams, free from fears,
you morph into a soaring hawk and fly
away from broken promises and tears.
And allow Hope to lift your spirits high:
for, in the safety of dreams, an open sky
holds endless possibilities to try.
You hitch a ride upon a passing breeze,
inviting your inner child out to play;
floating like a thistle tuft o'er the trees.
Don't let reality stand in your way;
swim the Milky Way or dance a ballet,
cruise imagination's superhighway.
Go to where wishes will always come true:
to that private place, where happy thoughts rule,
and you're free: to be anyone but you.
Without the weight of shame or ridicule,
dreams can crown you as a king or a fool,
but beware, not every crown flaunts a jewel.
Dreams are portals to magical places
that the Sandman creates; then erases.
Cruise ships appear over the horizon
As white
As the crest of tidal waves
Surging to harbor
No I said
To hell with cruise ships
To ride inside a machine
My wife and I
Prefer
To sit beside
The purr of ocean with opened books
Sun on our shoulders all day
A mom in a string bikini
Wrestling her morning pre-teen by his neck
With applied sunscreen
At low tide
I walk half a mile out to sea
On my knees
My wife watches me
A Royal Tern with a black tuft atop his head
Pesters a female until she is exhausted
Or that annoyed
She looks him in the eye
Then lifts her legs
And flies
As fast as her wings will carry her
Straight out to sea
And as far as I can see
She never turns around or looks back
But he pursues
Blind to her wake
He will follow
Over metal ships and the flesh of the horizon
Over the humpbacks of the spouting waves
He will follow her to where the sun and moon
Are born each day
He will follow
To that round shore of the tired spent and nests
Until she rests
And turns to him
Come my love come with me
Let us be one with the sea.
Argent moons myriad known, beneath an endless zenith sky
When hotter suns unaltered and stars ruled as aperture fever of a night
Around a fire this Naabeeho song begun, sung louder than a heaven's choir
As “Soaring Feather” was tuft mothered, from Navajo out of Chief Eagle Gray's desire
But, now less wild panes opaque of Dine', behind leather eyes am I
Brittle bone to withered dust, a desert sage that dries
And I plead one last dream before doors beyond forever
Gazing east, out cross, fallen white of Navajo still November
I am blinded into vision winds, so quickened unto rapture
Swept along the swaying prairie grass, messenger of earth then after
The billowing, ghosts of buffalo left innocence roaming over head
And I rise in the morning mist, wings tall on Appaloosa's empathic wrath
Regrets ascending gallop to step upon plateau in reach of raven's tail plumose
Reborn as Yei to hunt the sky, shed the herds of swifting nimbus
A changeling caught within a current writhe, transcending into tempest, high
Quelling ages and ages of limitations, let the lightning bolts of redress fly
A warrior of the Holy Ones, my tabernacle on mother earth drifting dies
But, on painted horse run rising up, a brazen spirit storm comes alive
Free amidst the gale, thunderous beats in temporal instrumental
As clouds begin to blacken, past native spirits dance ceremonial into tornado
Hozoji drums beating round and round, whirlwind roar of nightly chants
I, Navajo dreamer stampeding across the azure plains of my once pure native land
Recompense only to scourge prejudice away and humble the most of evil men
And then stillness, a silent healing song, as forgiveness is a welcome friend
Copyright 2012 Micharl G. Smith
Mustela Erminea
with a black tuft of tail
long and muscular body
- easily made angry
inquisitive but shy
a master of mouse hunting
Cedars whisker the ditch along Possum Branch Road. Such small little fellers, hardly worth calling a tree. Some say haints put a spell on the whole two thousand arcres. Maybe so, maybe not, but leastways, the land wont grow even a decent scrub oak these days. Being mostly swamp, the creepy crawlers infest every rat hole and tuft of wire grass. The old run down Elizabethan house used to be a place of excitement back during reconstruction. It had the latest wood burners you could find in the south. Then the family started dying off- - - one by one. The old cajun Mammie came up with more fixins than you could shake a stick at, but nothing worked. The last one of the family died back in 1923. A marker in the small family grave yard still reads, "Here lies the last of 300 years worth of Deveroux. God save the Queen and these here states." Most of the markers are barely readable now, being so pitted by the weather. As long as Mammy lived, folks would drive their old buggies and rattletrap cars around the place. That's why they's that big bend in the road around it.
Anyways, you don't want a flat tire close to the place at night. There be a strange blue green light coming out from the small grave yard. Some folks say they suddenly had passengers in their back seats if they happened along at the right time. But I say, there ain't no right time for a rotton stranger to show up in your back seat, and not have a word to say. But remember one thing, if you are there at that house and a stranger shows up in the back seat, don't look straight at him. You will go blind for twenty four hours, and your food tastes rotton for a week. It's really bad because you just HAVE to eat somethin'.
So you best just stay off of Possum Branch road, even in the day time. There's folks out there that just ain't right.
I named her Chestnut, color of her coat,
and love to hold her muzzle near my cheek,
then run my hand from poll through forelock tuft
down withers over croup...such grand physique.
But now concerned about her rear leg limp;
a problem with her stifle, gaskin, hock?
Or lower...coronet band on her hoof;
perhaps a stone in frog or sprained fetlock.
Inspection of back hoof showed small heel crack
most likely due to horseshoe mal-aligned.
With pat on back, I walk her to the barn
and waste no time...a farrier must find.
Sandra M. Haight
~2nd Place~
Premiere Contest: Horses
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Judged: 10/30/2016
Required words to use:
muzzle, forelock, fetlock, hock, withers, stifle, poll,
croup, gaskin, frog, hoof, coronet.
Quizz with broad hints for poets
the nose bridge
an ear sans fold kneeling on a slab (sometimes
an upward curling lobe)
two upper ears sans lobes both folded into each other
two narrow noses meeting isosceles arms one leg
crossed on the right arm flat down
an upside down mirror-image interrogating sans point
an upright eye with fish tail tuft
left shoulder and loosely-dangling arm
upper and lower lips intertwined upright
knee-cap over bow leg
vertebral column sliding into hole
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014