Look! Can you see? Out of the window?
Snowflakes are falling, white blankets are forming.
Patience, little one,
Soon it will be quilted and quiet.
Not far away, three small mammals are doing their sleeping:
The dormouse, pipistrel and the solitary hedgehog -
Mystical prickled pig of the hedgerow.
Ssh, she's away with the fairies.
Snug in her nest, may her slumbers be blessed.
One in a million,
She's a spherical urchin
Curled tight on a cushion of twigs.
Hedgehog is dreaming, snuffling,
To chobble on tanklements of millipede and earwig.
No, no, no!
No mediaeval harbinger of doom -
She's a bristly broom,
Self-anointed by toad skin and poo,
She brushes in spring anew.
And in the half-lit, moonlit summers,
Her little donnies will write spells -
Not ‘ills’, with her quills,
As trails of silvered cursive script
In the glistening ink of snails -
Near nanny’s pots and pails on the patio.
Later, little one,
Her thorny needles will stitch cobwebs of autumn
Between the railings on the hill,
Knitting together a tapestry of seasons.
Shapeshifting.
Bewitching.
Centipede and millipede partner to open shoestore
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Please don't think it odd if I intercede
On behalf of the poor lowly centipede.
Though he does get the blues
When he has to buy shoes,
He's better off than his cousin, the millipede.
The moths get through the screen somehow
And when I walk outside,
The gnats and skeeters buzz around -
There’s no place you can hide.
The ants, at times, invade the house
And maybe, curled up tight,
A millipede will show, which is
A most unwelcome sight.
I haven’t seen the bees or wasps
But spiders must be here.
Their webs and those entrapped provide
The proof that they are near.
The country’s filled with bugs galore
And we can coexist,
But once they’re on my turf,
The handy swatter I enlist.
Last week on Wednesday
I was thinking the same thought
I am thinking today.
Time gets dazed out of mind,
gets rotated and recycled.
Each day is a next card
in an unshuffled pack.
The repetition is comforting
a pillow for a dazed head,
a microwaved chicken dinner
you can warm up once again.
The same can always
trip you up, make you see
the probability
of yet more stones upturned.
Wednesday gets dressed,
walks out into the early shine
finds a stone to overturn
nothing to see
but last week a millipede
wriggled away
marking another day.
a small train derailed
there was no casualty
a millipede
( Inspired by Basho)
~lit lonely insect
flutters mist the air it creeps
eight legs has its feet
creepy crawler waits,
mystery bug that sweeps wait
one millipede please~
6/24/21
CONTEST PLACEMENT: HONORABLE MENTION
For Bite Size Poem no.9 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Line Gauthier
Poem Syllable Counter Results
Syllables Per Line: 5 7 5 0 5 7 5
Total # Syllables: 34
Total # Lines: 7 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically: N/A
Total # Words: 25
Millie millipede needed some new shoes
for her summer holiday fun Disney cruise
Her old shoes were tight making Millie hop
so she went with mommy to the shoe shop
Millie hobbled through the door and began to wail
the poor shop assistant’s face turned quite pale
because Millie millipede had got forty tiny feet
so she sat Millie down on a comfortable seat
The shop assistant summoned a little elf
to fetch some shoe boxes from a high shelf
and when Millie tried some shiny red boots
she said, "These are wonderful substitutes"
The boots were leather and had a thick heel
for walking round Disneyland they’d be ideal
With so many feet Millie needed twenty pairs
so the elf assistant dashed up and down stairs
Mom was given a discount when the bill was paid
so they stopped at a café for sweet lemonade
Millie wore her shiny boots all the way home
stopping off to show them to her pal Ted gnome.
Nursery Rhyme 2 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Eve Roper
03/12/21
If I were a millipede
- / Flip-Flops
The only thing I wanted was slippers
- / Flip-Flops
Five hundred pairs - you might think it's a lot
- / Flip-Flops
The best "doctor" for my tiny little feet
- / Flip-Flops
Let it be my greatest happiness
- / Flip-Flops
On the beach with lovely bathing water
- / Flip-Flops
Sun through my purple sunshine hat
- / Flip-Flops
I prefer the sweet taste of ice cream
- / Flip-Flops
Satisfaction prevents envy, soul or not -
It would be a floating summer symphony
filled with grains of sand, salt, sun
and a lot of Flip-Flops
24.08.2020
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Soul Slipper Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann
4th place in the contest
An ornamental doe and fawn,
suddenly move. Tails wave, noses nuzzle –
I have mistaken an actuality,
and now am thrown out of my skin.
I’m a millipede of fractal awareness.
I sniff the body-odor of the planet
take inward, then sift out
Australia and Africa.
I pause to dip my face in the River Liffey,
odoriferous waters foam over septum and cranium.
I’m a teaming acre of feelers and heads. Until
an atom of disbelief re-enters its exoskeleton.
The next moment is inevitable;
it is a concrete bunker of inevitability.
I am a stone goblin with a blunt chisel.
Nerve buds are again Saran wrapped.
Oddly, I’m carrying a large red kangaroo
on my shoulders;
it’s demanding to be sent back,
and I would send it back – if I knew how.
Hey,Miss cute little jumping spider;
you are a skilled under leaf hider.
Wow!The crown like eight tiny eyes!
or you the princess in disguise?
Hello, Mr. Handsome Hawk moth caterpillar;
the color spots on your body glitter.
Aww, you look like a snake, with big pseudo eyes,
Tell me, when are you gonna fly?
Oh, the shiny cyanide millipede,
How do you manage to walk,
with these many golden legs?
Why are you so shy, now don't get coiled.
Hey,the smiling soft snail;
Why do you look so pale?
Can't bare your mobile home?
Come take rest, don't roam
I still wonder,
Why do they hate you? It's not fair
It's their blunder
You just don't care.
April-30-2018
Mom hated Millipedes, she didn't like them at all.
Whenever she saw one, it made her skin crawl.
She hated them because she was afraid of being bit.
One day she saw a Millipede and she threw some rocks and crushed it.
Mom hated Millipedes or 1000 legs which is what they're also called.
Whenever she saw a millipede she became both scared and appalled.
Mom hated 1000 legs, that's what has been decreed.
I'm not lying when I say that Mom hated Millipedes.
honesty at the edge of sleep
captive by the night
deepest black
it touches into my soul
where turmoil presides.
so many questions
on millipede feet
stomping in army boots
across all my conscience;
a voice singing soft upon the ear
was there not more?
could you not have trod
that one mile more?
in your searches
were they not for you
to find love by your wit defined
when all the while
scattered as shells along the shore
of your wandering sea
were there not times
to love in many forms, colours
have you missed the whole lesson?
it is not how much you are loved.
it is how much of your love is given, freely.
Song To Nature
Today it was bright and the sun shone above
The sky was an azure blue
And the breeze from the east made a low hallowed sound
as it blew all the leaves to their demise on the ground
From where I was sitting not a cloud was in view
And yet a warm, wet rain hit the earth all anew
The colors of springtime from purple to pink,
seemed all faded and worn and a bit out of sync
There was a scent on the air of which I must say
was like the rotting of flesh and of sleep out on the grass,
while a sweet melody sort of just drifted past
From where I was sitting I could see all who came
And they saw through me, my sorrow and shame
There was gray slabs of nothingness scattered around
Each encrypted a message so worldly profound
And the blooming decorum was a sight to behold,
each a symbol of love to the memories untold
And alas, a millipede on a road newly paved
was the last thing I saw from the view at my grave
A slice of is figment is not stone carved melon nor mould of moon cake nor is it moaning marbles moving momentously. It is fascinating to note that steam rolling over headlines using big heavy wheels can induce a certain amount of jelly, carbonated drinks, hexagonal fishcakes, and seaweed to jump from the cupboard climb out of packets and sing very loudly in simultaneous song. The voice of a vortex is a visionary visualising vivarium vicariously vibrating vocabulary. And all the while the little letters let linking lemurs laugh. Lemurs laugh lovingly and love is not an itemised bill with googly eyes nor is it a meter reading a tome. So all hail in a pail for a puffing puffin is chewing on a boiled sweet today. Hahaha millionaire millipede moving many mice. Hahaha a pair of eagle faces in skintight shirts prancing. Xxxxx synchronisation z z z z z at seven thirty six a m on a dusty humid track of a bathroom floor with no b side eclipse effect. Z
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