A glimpse of leaves trembling in the wind.
Shinning waters glistening.
Shadow bird singing.
Devil Stick crawling with Virginia Creeper.
Buds speared by humming birds.
Rabbits thumping in waves of green.
Breezes changing the view.
A glimpse into something new.
There was a pub called the Cross Keys
Well known for its pork pie and peas.
But the watered down beer
Gave drinkers no cheer.
And the seats were crawling with fleas.
The veterans
JD Vance and Tim Waltz have in common
they have served and can call themselves
veterans, which has a sacred meaning
They joined to serve and defend America's
values of freedom and democracy
We know that for the two above, it was
about further education, to join but too long
and get out when the going got tough
Still, they are veterans who served.
I think of the men from the many small towns
unknown by most people, they joined and
was sent to Vietnam, fighting a war in
the name for freedom and democracy
they believed in what was said
When a platoon whose order is to take a hill
crawling with snakes and booby traps
they knew what terror was, black shadows
coming up from the earth, killing them
They were heroes fighting a wrong war
The survivors are veterans if they
are lucky to receive a small pension
when they are aged and dressed up
in old uniforms
we are proud of them, know what the
scarify is to die when the people in
Washington needs people who believe
in the defense of America, values call
to arms
It isn't easy to save the world
With your back on the asphalt
Crawling with carpenter ants that
Yes even they
Want you out of the way
I'd head home to the building with no AC
Bring my friends back with
A trail of sugar cubes
But I tried it
Even the insects won't go inside it
I think I'll close my eyes, here in this parking spot
Until somebody asks me if I am okay
And I'll, groggy, tell them "Yeah, right,"
This is just what I do
But probably, neither are you
.Evil
A wormy apple bruised
bread crawling with weevils
Mottled black and blue
Essences of evil
Skull and crossbones warn
deadly poisonous gas
Tortured cries and moans
Creepy sutured mask
Disguises of light and truth
Hiding grotesque thoughts
Someone follows you
Security, safety lost
Empathies a myth
I alone am real
Fill your terror with
All that I don't feel
Bodily pain excites
But even better I crave
Destruction of the mind
Making you depraved
A little harmless here
A bit of, only human, there
Deeper darkness steer
Till it's hard to care
I knock a jolly rhythm
To distract you and disarm
You unlock the first one
and Quiet the alarm
Peeking, who is there?
Show all my wicked teeth
Desensitized you stare
And open the door to me.
Red Oak menstruates in the heat of summer
Beech and maples stand back from her labor
Moonlight lifts her skirt
Wind drifts through her leaves
She stomps in circles only the owls divine
Piper of voles
She checks the many holes up and down her body
Shivers
An ancient skin crawling with leafhoppers and katydids
Pinches herself of replications
Like a plate glass window shattered from above
She rains green acorns
Thousands of bitter thumbtacks dropped to the forest floor
Seeds claw to their tiny graves
How they cry night and day
During a month of rain sun and the twist of Earth’s belly!
Mother! Mother!
Until
More than enough
For a feast of all the creatures
The remaining settle
Stars
Born from the mud and sky of colliding galaxies
Woman and God.
The fork pitch you use to stab
All your friends with in the back
Is as sharp and torturous
As actions your so notorious
For displaying with two faced grins
Evil lurks under your skin
That is crawling with bad schemes
Followed by heartbreak it seems
Not one day or week goes by
That your dark and evil eyes
Hide a plan for one of us
To get thrown under the bus
And crushed by the heavy weight
Of your big nastiness slate
That cant be pulled off in time
Your a gooey piece of slime
That attaches to those who
Always tried to help you through
The tough times that you were facing
Instead of thanks you are now gracing
All of us with the sad essence
Whenever you show your pressence
Trying to ditch and escape
Is no use when you just drape
A lasso around our group
And each lie tightens the loop
So we just try to defend
One another till the end
When we are finally set free
From this anguished misery
That you've given to us all
Your an insect that should crawl
Under a rock we can crush you
Giving us a happy rush to
Release all the years of hurt
As your smashed into the dirt
"An Equitable Assassin Trying to be Nice"
...he
slides the coldies
across the table,
the beer, American
not as sharp,
but slides down
quick, smoothly
clean
cold
crisp
he thinks,
lips ripe
for kissing
the prints warm
the motive missing
somewhere lost in the hallelujahs
Jacob’s Ladder
crawling with
footprints
hands, fingers
and lips
all over glass walls
Snow White
doesn’t sleep
at all, but ...
cool as a block of ice,
history melting
all over the place
a cold case
trying to be tidy
trying to be nice
an equitable
assassin
out of place
trying to be nice
cool as a block of ice
history melting
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
The unmistakable sound smacks of
church bells in purgatory -- our family
has burnt the last candles in the damp basement
crawling with mice.
Neighbors offer their flashlight, under the thunderous explosions above
rocking the building.
Toddlers cry and dogs bark, older women reminisce WWII's horrors
which they survived, and will survive again.
It's morning again, militias bring hot bread and
milk for the new-born hurried from hospital that fell to Russian missile,
intercepted. Last night here,
death was intercepted again, prolonging the Russian misery.
The air-raid sirens are now music to ear, their scratching noise filling the air
with epic serenity.
The sirens haven't robbed me of my
human potential.
Bang another explosion
I flinch back downstairs again
My heartbeats in my toes
It’s only a half past 7.
He sits and scratches
With endless scratching
They cover him in patches
Hope they aren’t catching
He struggles with them
Longing to destroy their eggs
They darken and condemn
Creeping and crawling with long legs
He dreads this affliction
Which comes to him often
Yearning for their eviction
His heart would surely soften
He is the dog of my dreams
Yet he begs and he pleads
For relief from the regimes
Fleas he sometimes feeds
He is weakened by their angry pursuit
They chase him round and round
The struggle is so very acute
Until a cure is finally found
He is the best friend I’ve ever had
When the dreaded fleas leave
There is such joy – he’s so glad
For these insects, he will not grieve
If you happen upon my sweet dog
Scratch his ear and let him know
His heart won’t be in such a fog
Without this angry, dreaded foe
Insects Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Angela Tune
January 15, 2022
Forever Ever or Never
Forever does it exist? Forever is never doesn’t exist. It betrays hearts, breaks bones in its subtle nuances. It takes love, makes it eternal but it’s not. There is nothing just worn down cloth from the gaggery. No one has any right to tell. Love has no name so don’t expect it to deliver your lusty pleasures.
Aphrodite has a mirror_ it reflects your world of despicable lust. Her voice flogs those who use its dance for uppity pose.
Freyja was here with Eros flown away.
I am impassioned with this. Never born_trapped in mother’s uterus_screaming forever. But you released me. This hideous hateful horrid hobgoblin always down inside inner core gutter’s sewer range. Crawling with the dregs- scrags_ slags lovers who have been banished for a dream of sensuality.
Unbeknown to every scab here, I am to see_ relish freedom_ hovering, staggering towards my light, the golden globe IBurning gone but not forever as there is no ever or nowhere forgone. Person of steel lifts me out of the gutter- carrys me on her back to the hollowmen hole. I’m gone.
It's my foundation
A lot of medication
It's my salvation
I'll be taking meds
To straighten out my old head
It's just as I said
It's why I don't drink beer
Because I might disappear
Or act kind of *****
Please give me my meds
I'll take them until I'm dead
That's something I read
Smoke my cigarette
Talk to the moon and forget
All of my regrets
What is so obscene
Pages of a magazine?
TV that I seen?
I live in a dream
Nothing is as it would seem
What is the meaning?
They are meds not drugs
Helps my brain crawling with bugs
Where's the hole I dug?
I need a place to hide
I need a brand new disguise
I can't fool her eyes...
What's the solution?
Where is the evolution?
What's the pollution?
It's all in my brain
What happens after the rain?
Will I be insane?
What is left of me?
Time is moving speedily
Save soul and body...
Armageddon
I can't seem to relax.
At night my bed's on fire.
My brain is crawling with
Armageddon like ants and
society is choosing sides and
guns are everywhere and my
friends are nowhere, man! I
know better and I need Xanax.
Give me shelter against the foe.
Don't blindfold me against a wall.
Purple days, pastel drawings I
Crumpled and threw on the floor.
I picked them up, unfolded them,
And taped them to my bedroom door.
Life so cruel I tremble in pain in
The rusty colored mornings standing
In the dew.
My eyes burned and I felt feverish
When I thought of you.
A bottle of white capsules in
My hand one night, and while
I stared at them all I could think
About was our fatuous fight.
You didn’t know I almost died
Because when you asked me what
I did, I lied.
Cancer, tropical nights in a small
Town swarming with seagulls and
Buildings empty of a shadow or breath.
Love dealt my way, then spoiled like
Garbage and death.
Days crawling with humidity and dragonflies,
And I wish you could see me the
Way I was before I looked like this.
I’ve ripped up all the pictures, but
It’s the memories I miss.
Whiskey made it so much worse,
But I felt no love or hate. On the
Wagon I white knuckle agony as
I accept my fate.
sunshiny fountains
those newborn, big puppies crawls
along with insects
~
leaping sunshiny
so little, big puppies crawls
stepping on insects
3/3/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
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