Bristling Poems | Examples

The Jagged Edges

Natural things are rarely smooth
or flawless as they appear on the surface
      Smooth fur on skin and curve on wing
           are rough and jagged underneath
Push back against the grain shows true texture within
       reveals bristling hairs and quill barbs of feathers
          It's the grit within that shapes us
A pearl is smooth but inside is a seed of grit
We need the bumps knurls and gnarls to grip and hold
Slick things slip through silky wet and wanton fingers
          Most natural things are rough at birth
Stones and gold nuggets are fractured rough at source
They're smoothed by wear and tear of sand rubbing in streams
        Babies are smooth at birth but age roughens them
Humans grind away all day at nature's roughness
seeking perfection in shiny smooth and faultless
      Blissfully they're unaware that
it's the faults flaws texture and roughness within
           that glistens shiny the pearl
It's the bumps and gnarls outside that knurls the grip

Fox

Appears - eyes alight
Freezes - bristling orange
Leaves - sleek and silent

Gentle Little Lamb

   Shaking her wet ears, uncertain 
   How her purpose may be best served
   Stagger concealed in immersion
   Shown the pasture that she deserved

   
   Frolicking safely within a flock
   Diminutive trot to the beat kept timid
   Faithfully bides time, tick clock 
   Offer of grace to God signals her limit


   Wool washed, cleansed by clan
   Coddled offspring wrapped with cotton 
   Shepherd held title, simple plan
   Dinners prepared, archaic ideals rotten 


   Bristling beneath her softness
   Fibres frayed at what her life signifies 
   Dismayed to only boost profits
   Loyal lamb follow is forsaken sacrifice 

  
   Fuming, she rips off her fleece
   Livid lion malicious marauder dormant
   Roars revenge, discards peace
   Trek to reckless, divorce her informant 


   Taught to shelter, even in harm
   Trust husband’s will, cutlet finale fate
   Savage feline, leaving the farm
   Sleek escapee lapping blood off plate




      
     Sacrificial Sixteenth November

Lost Love

Lost Love 

(A lone voice whispers)

Once lost
In love's asylum 

Overcome by guilt 

As I sat serving unseen emotional titans

In every second, 
Sat in silence 

Feeling numb and 
Bristling with sweet thoughts of violence 

Feeling time 
Enjoying the rush

Like a blackbird crowing in the bush 

A bell always rings

Breaking the spell running up and down my spine

Where memories of you sing

In seductive rhymes
When you were mine 

Dressed in white
Wearing our favourite rings

It maybe a cut 
Of a thousand deaths 

This night
When I remember a real love
I once possessed

In night and day

But like frankincense and Myrrh

Which always flows and sways

To the secret codex linked 
To the excesses of sex

And midnight conquests 
When libido's pray to play

As I lay in this solitude
With this curse to be endured

 And all that may follow

I look to the divine gift of Apollo

And write poetry of you
To rebuild
My inner hollow

As my pitiful sorrow
My soul 

Delicately tries in vain
To 
Swallow

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

GREEN MEANING

GREEN MEANING

As I walk deep into the forest of poetic lines
There’s signs of pretension and misplaced pride
Pushing aside branches that are hanging low
Each row of leaves like bristling green tape
Some scrape my cheeks, but others caress
But must I press on regardless, to the clearing
Hearing just the rustling of secrets whispered

It’s as if these words have no welcome for me
They can see an intruder, with no business here
Yet I am near to the spot where we shall meet
And be complete, as our lines shall join as one
Our time’s begun, yet for long we cannot stay
We’ll find a way to tell it loudly, all over again
Replace pain with joy, where writing has been

The Inkling

I have an inkling 
My writing is winking
At me behind my back
Or maybe its just blinking, 
Mindlessly thinking
While wrinkling up
My tiny universe
By tinkering
And intermingling
The real and the false~
I hear a clinking,
A chilling kind of whistling;
What is that stinking prickling 
I can feel bristling 
Up and down my spine?

Trees In The Wind

Thousands of tall evergreen trees
Bristling in the coldest winter wind.

Before The Sun's Pieces

Before the sun's pieces,
Shine on brim's, coffee mug;
And with my prepping airs—
It's all jeopardy to 
Roll frost in bed somewhere.

Before the sun's pieces,
Rain in a golden chain.
I pine at streaked window.
How bitter is the fog
From where night morn dreams go.

Before the sun's pieces,
Ice below the outside,
In a bristling gesture—
God, now I see in you
Past my bleak reflections.

Before the sun's pieces,
While dawn is watched by moon,
Sun has the grace to gleam—
He'll come in the long fade,
For his Moon maiden, seen.

Look Closely

Close up is when you see the cracks,
the lines etched, scratched onto canvas.
An oil painting that survived a fire.

Close up is when you see the ash
loosen, drift away in a breeze. Smoke. 
Something once hot white turned to charcoal.

Close up is when you see the riverbeds
dry now from drought, once drenched with desire.
Cargo stuck in the mud of the water we were.

Close up is when you see marrow, the blood 
and bone bristling under transparent paper
once pink and once flesh. Once strong. Once marble.

So leave, please. See me blur as those cracks become hazy.
Retire, step back. Zoom out. Fly up with only a dot down here to see.
Take a snapshot out of focus. Forget to develop the memory of me.

Moon Stages Minichu

Moonlight shivers
On my cold, rattling pane to wake
Me from my own sleep's winter.

The condolences in this season's life—
She's someone else in bristling glow;
To draw me out, she takes her time.

A frost crescendo
Dropping shadows
Hint of snow. 

Moonlight shivers—
She's someone else in bristling glow,
Hint of snow.

Bristling Angelica Caress Feeling Loved

Never have I 

Yet or still before 

Or long since will be met

With such a feeling 

Of utter fulfillment and blessed content

To the point it repaired my broken heart 

As when I felt you place your hand upon

My face with your complete and utter 

Angelic grace and gentle touch that has passed 

I have began to love you

More and more 

To way down depth of my inner core

And it will never be enough

From me to you

To ever be able to say or repay you

Apart from me to say to you

I love you and miss you so

As you and you alone to me

Nourish both my heart and soul

And your love alone

Has filled the gapping hole

To the point I can quite honestly say

For one final last more time in my life 

I am
" Hole " 
Again 

Completely and utterly fulfilled to the brink

Bristling from head to toe

With ever increasing love 

And that is solely down to you

So sincerely this is my heartfelt 

Dedication and means of thanking you

As I do dearly , truly , madly love you so

The Devilish Qualm

And there, painted
and playing in sweetest frame 
is the timeless province.
There, suspended 
by the arches of axiom,
with sputtering brushes
of wielded coherent structure.
I drown upon spearing fear
in the devilish qualm,
splintered to scattered scree
upon the wuthering face 
of this old, roaming sphere:
in continuous form
and bristling invariance.
Here is one soul 
stripped of fire's bite. 
I have my tools at hand, 
extensions of my form;
yet the tendons are emblazoned,
threatening to break
upon the simplest gesture.
I dare to say
that I do not live:
I am suspended in a desert
where life once drifted.
I once was electing Truth
but am now spirited into hushing,
principled in my lightened travels.

Infernal Prison

We dance beneath a carousel of blood
Tears flowing from the eyes causing a flood
We're just damned by our own intentions
Brewed by our interpersonal tensions
Lightning lances lively, and we're losing
Because reality is what we keep refusing
When there is no defusing mistakes we're choosing
It's bruising and abusing but we keep accusing
Each other of this nightmare we're dealt
When it's hard to have talked about how we felt
What does it mean to see an infernal prison to one born free
This ship we ride is brittle battling a bristling sea
But the fact is eventually the carousel stops spinning
And even the devil can't stop from grinning
For we have awoken the harbinger of end times
And we all must atone for our sins and crimes
So when you gaze into the unfathomable eyes of the abyss
Know that death awaits with a little kiss
And maybe then you will know it when you see
What an infernal prison means to one born free

Quenching Thirst of Halloween Night

Moon rays creeps through darkness gloom of heaven,
Descending upon the small town of Salem.
Chill wind whistles through, forcing shutters to clatter, and wind chimes to ring.
Against scattered grayish clouds across the full moon
Silhouettes of flying, cackling witches on broomsticks and bats.
An open broken window and porch arch way
Monster spiders weaving silken nets to trap their living prey.
Trees tremble, shedding leaves on this cool creepy night.
Feelings of dread, brings silent murmur prayers thorough out the town,
Afraid, bed-sheets would be peeled away as they sleep.
Quenching thirst of Halloween night
Brings out the unforgiving walking stalking dead.

Beware, you might this night be the one, scowling back and forth,
Snarling viciously, with bristling fur, an ugly creature of the night.


10/26/2022

Off To School

OFF TO SCHOOL

So you're off to boarding school,
It'll be the making of you, my lad,
Muses the bespectacled gentleman,
Sat behind his morning paper, 
The commuter train steaming 
Its trundling way
Past opened curtains 
Of genteel suburbia.

Familiarly hypnotic rhythm 
From the clickety-clacking track
Continues, scarcely heeded 
By the carriage's motley clientele, 
Disturbed from comatose reveries, 
Enduring the drilled strains 
Of unwelcome conversation.

Hostile eyes look up in 
Bristling annoyance
At a shy, enclosed boy, 
Who keeps locked-in silence 
On his first uncertain foray
Into the strange world beyond 
The comfortable boundaries
Of his homely playpen.

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