Carapace Poems

Ghoulish Gear

Gears to grind, grey grimace?
O ghoulish, gold to get?
Turtle, beneath carapace!
He who sleeps forgets!

The champion of the city?
A far off challenger?
This may not - Well, pity.
O for thee, sound! Sad? Sure...

Soul in care of, portal?
A sword will sort it out?
Heart blood, pump! Pour, poor pill!
Ravine rill runs the rout!

Fire-god, in a stern tall forge.
What there will we see?
Abyssal the chasm gorge!
Flickering flock, thy fee!

Guns atop the atoll?
This strategy worked when?
Downward plunge into thy hole!
O dragon, doom! Death! Den...

Rack of lamb for dinner?
Thy supper's sorely got.
O vampire, vine! The winner?
It couldn't be thee, thought.

Cold thy core, O bonfire?
It never seems to get.
Heaven and Hell, murk and mire!
Pinned down, O my pet!

The Calico Box Crab

Once, an aged fisherman was heard to speak
from a boat on the shore of Chesapeake Bay.
His voice, like every bone and plank that did creak,
(as the ocean waves came in to splash and spray)
about a creature, singular and unique,
"'twas eighty-seven years ago to the day. 
When I was just up to a grasshopper's knee 
I saw the calico box crab by the sea. 

As I stood near the sand on a slick sea slab, 
in an earthly appearance of God's good grace,
it was then that I saw it - I saw the crab, 
sporting a spotted, colorful carapace,
a crustacean, that never was dull nor drab.
I would always remember the special place
where I first found the joy I couldn't foresee,
meeting the calico box crab by the sea.

I tried gently to touch her, with my right hand, 
but I scared the calico box crab away,
as she disappeared swiftly in the soft sand.
I come back to this place each year on this day, 
but I won't come again.  My time is at hand, 
and I'm going to Heaven, but I can say,
'I never touched her, but I once got to see
the pretty calico box crab by the sea.'"

Blunderbuss Bongo

Destruction, thy name is wrath!
By God, do the math!
Walk thee down the warrior's path?
Take a bloody bath!

Chunks of bodies broken?
A fight! To reason stand!
What hath Hell awoken?
O Hel, call thy warband!

Twilight of the elder race?
Blast off into space!
Tortoise, polish carapace!
For agony brace!

What goals see tomorrow?
I'll bet I know a few.
Beggar, can ye borrow?
O money lenders, mew!

Thunder, roll for pity's sake!
How much can we take?
O for vampires on the stake!
Heart within all, break!

Dragons move in armies?
Only once in a while.
Witches, cast thy charm, please.
What need have we of guile?

Moving on? Just sac the pawn.
Blow the end a kiss.
Morning, hast thou need of dawn?
Serpents, time to hiss.

Choices. How they haunt us!
Another place and time!
Bongo drums for blunderbuss?
Cold confusion. Crime...

Shadowy White

Shadowy White

With A Staff Of Sequoia
 Woe-Fully
  Stir All The Seas
   To A Dread Deeper Hue… 

More Green!
 More Red!
  Now More Blue, Again…
   Deeper 
    Blue…

***

Tidally Spread
  All The Heat
There Misled…

Warm The Palid 
   Frigid Face
Of The Head,
   The Carapace!

Of The Icy Invalid,
 Southern, 
   Skewed,
      Haven's  
        Stars 
     Crossed!

***

Until 
     The 
           Mountains 
     Are Covered!

And Lost!

***

     Then Reborn In
          Fire, Even Higher!
                   And Now High-Higher!!
                                 OVER-GROWN !!!

***
***

   To 
Under-Go…
        
        To Bury
         And 
          Re-Grow…

                Is

                The
***

                  One.

***
***

Which Is: 

***

             Well Known.
***
***
***

-Gray Squirrel 
06-12-2025

Star Child

Late at night
or on the threshold of another dream,
I power up my time machine
and travel over the temple tops
of an as yet unchartered heaven.

The mind flips over
as if some spectral hand
was turning over a giant tortoise shell,
the inner carapace is mapped,
and I see that an adventurous wanderer
has been here before me.

Before the light illuminated the deep,
he had already circumnavigated the cosmos,
after such minor astral excursions
he slipped into a seal skin,
and assumed he was human
like the rest of us aliens.

Early or late, I carry a laptop
in my head to calculate
the many solar flares
that are now dancing into extinction.

Turns out
I am also one of those flares.

The Almond Tree Blossom

You tasted spring’s young almonds green;
sweeter than vestal nectarine
then all your innocence is lost;
forever to the wind is tossed.

The seed you planted long ago;
time will see it ripen and grow;
as the summer sun slow unfolds,
the carapace no longer holds

Fall harvest fruit is eager reaped;
upon a bride and groom are heaped;
Young virgins take them to their bed
to dream, foretell, of whom they wed.

When the end is near, as foretold
and the winter’s dark, bitter cold
makes the future labored to see
each year blossoms the almond tree.

Apostate, Apostrophe

Apostate, apostrophe?
Faces in the crowd?
Scenes in plays, dramatic be!
Bury deep, O shroud...

Queens of high end greatness?
These exist, but are rare.
Golem, gold. Take thy best guess!
Could be anywhere...

Fair? Life? Dance upon my knife!
Hollow hills and strife.
Flickering like notes a-fife?
Raw roundabout rife...

Wife, thy furious temper-main!
Deep as ocean blue!
Vampire, best avoid that vein!
What the hell to do?

Lament? Over duress stark.
Cold core confuse call.
How indeed the day gets dark...
Placer soil of Saul...

What the heck has happened here?
What did I just write?
Prophet wisdom gets severe!
Fate, been feeling bright?

Light atop the high cliff face?
Hope for sparks apace.
Otherwise be-fevered chase!
Crushed in carapace...

Heaven's Harpsichord

Harpsichord in heaven?
Cubic or spherical?
Bread, O baker? Leaven.
Just flicker as you fall...

Dancing lights apace in space?
Watch them in her face.
Ghost, vanish without a trace!
Gold, case, carapace!

Desert floor in winter?
No more than one inch, snow.
Shredder, got a splinter?
Tormented, O my foe.

Panels, dance about the night!
Sparks in porcelain!
Falcon, gather wind in flight!
How we'll meet again...

Yellow eyed priest, bid the feast!
Shepherd, are ye fleeced?
Squire, page, are the wheels a-greased?
Only if they're pieced.

Connect, O my fibers!
Build high the city walls!
If they're born to jibe, sirs;
They're bound for taking falls.

Tyrant of the borderland?
Show them how we stand!
Crush them in thy hardest hand!
Order countermand!

Silence in the place of whole?
Remotely control.
Ye gods, what is mortal soul?
Golden light a-bowl.

Wave Trawling

Where the tide licks a sandy beach
a running ripple
thins to wash a ring of rounded pebbles -
there, a muddy ribbon
trickles through brine rinsed trinkets
surged up as a slosh of time
from the oceans depth.

Here be the bones of seahorse dragons,
and the beached and bloated
pods of marine algae,
Fractured mollusk shells splinter,
carapace and claws swell
in a mutual dross,
a trawled-up flotsam
tossed upon
low spin drifting waves.

A sculptured driftwood
expressed into mythic forms
anchors its art where the wind combs.
Sometimes coins, both new and old, surface
to be pocketed once more.
Obscure metallic treasures knuckle
and poke-mark the shoreside
with their unanswered questions.

I walk an ankle-deep dawn light
shipwrecked on my own shores edge.
A seagull's homeless cry
keeps me fishing for new depths.

The Painter

Lure of mirage
in deranged dunes,
dances in
dandelion rhythm 
with oasis dream,
illusion inscribed
in sane sands of time,
sliding continuum
with desiccated travail, 
thirst unquenched,
stimulus sensuous,
perpetual.

Dormant despair
usurps harps of hope,
vibrato dissipates
unperceived,
wisdom shroud  
unfurls crafty chimera
in life of actuality,
awareness avid, 
imbibed.

Stifling shadow 
anguished onyx cloud
creeps remorseless, 
dissension darkness drips 
opaque desolateness 
on listless landscape,
mangled in 
strife maelstrom,
mind sucked within 
hope vortex, 
umbrage pervades,
unushered. 

Silver spectrum
of lines transient 
in acumen cloud,
splits into colors 
of radiant reverie
in optimistic prism,
sculpted.

Convoluted canvas,
carapace conjured
for contorted hideous faces,
turning in a trance 
into baroque frescos,
flicker of beauty
sparkles sneaky 
in conceived smile, 
beholder, 
                    the painter.

a beautiful dream, slowly dying

The earth wept for no reason 
under a soft articulate noise 
of auctioned lives, 
a beautiful dream, slowly dying.

Rottenness seeks in the soul
righteous prey,
grown from pure moments
in which the whiteness of thought
nurtures the hope of cleanliness
away from the smell own rot,
inherited from primary birth. 
I feel the path in the whites of my eyes 
through the chain of peoplecrucified 
only for the future millennia. 
We collect the rusty nails with tears 
let's stick them on the sky. 
Through the ancestral valleys 
the blood of the crusaders flows, 
furrowing the carapace of faith 
to destruction. 
One earth, 
one history, 
hangs like a ripe fruit 
in the grown tree 
from the heart of the universe 
ready to taste the putrefaction. 
On another branch
a flower opens 
in the prehistory of another fruit.

The earth wept for no reason 
under a soft articulate noise 
of auctioned lives, 
a beautiful dream, slowly dying

The Beholder

Lure of mirage
in deranged dunes,
dances in
dandelion rhythm 
with oasis dream,
illusion inscribed
in sane sands of time,
sliding continuum
with desiccated travail, 
thirst unquenched,
stimulus perpetual.

Dormant despair
usurps harps of hope,
vibrato dissipates
unperceived,
wisdom shroud  
unfurls crafty chimera
in life of actuality,
awareness imbibed.

Stifling shadow 
of ebony anguish cloud
creeps remorseless, 
dissension darkness drips 
opaque desolateness 
on listless landscape,
mangled in 
strife maelstrom,
mind sucked within 
hope vortex, 
umbrage unushered. 

Silver spectrum
of lines transient 
in acumen cloud,
splits into colors 
of radiant reverie
in optimistic prism.

Convoluted canvas,
carapace conjured
for contorted hideous faces,
turning in a trance 
into baroque frescos,
flicker of beauty
sparkles sneaky 
in conceived smile. 
…beholder, the painter.

Carapace

A carapace of courage
Lies buried in the hills.
A library of wisdom
Stocked with empty pages,
Erased for all the ages.
A husk of special skills
And verbal vitality
Dad, juggernaut at rest.

Anub'Arak

"Stop touching my carapace, fools!"
His booming voice echoed the caverns below
Yet the chosen champions kept their onslaught

Being the master's envoy he had no choice
His obedience was not his own though

Long ago, himself the king of the spiders unknown
His noble life ended with the master's blow

Now mindless tool, caught in master's throes
His last stand against the factions' hope

Spikes pierce the ground, his summons close
His efforts in vain, his master's anger known

Pomegranate

Arid, bony-shanked carapace.
Shiny, weathered patina
tells of desolation,
Belies any promise of richness;
Yet when inverted,
Becoming regal.
A tatty, crown implies 
The ancient purport.


Tough, yet easily-torn in avarice.
Revealing, inner passion
Shrieks fecundity and blood, 
Gleams with shiny liveliness;
Yet when sundered,
Serried jewels.
A secret, inner-order shows
The abundant warrant.


Red, a study of translucence.
Deep-hued, each perfect gem 
Fades to stalk-umbilicus,
Foretells the unborn orchard;
Yet when amassed,
Bitter-sweet.
A fruitful sumptuousness gives life
The noble pomme grenate.

• Short Carapace Poems
• Famous Carapace Poems
• Best Carapace Poems
• Read Carapace Poems
• Long Carapace Poems
• Carapace Quotes