Ribbed Poems | Examples

A Lot of Nerve

     I prefer raw dates to most candidates
        Robert to Bill Gates
     Watching mine to lifting weights
        fewer versus more states

     Some call me a rock-ribbed conservative
        but they all have a lot of nerve
      My day is filled with uncommon verve
        in my swivel chair ~ Watch me swerve!



     ______________________________________
     Robert Gates served as Secretary of Defense
     for Obama and then Bush Jr., from 2006 - 2011.

Japanese Beetles

Don’t be fooled, they carry 
nothing of the Orient’s allure.
These voracious beetles,
if they had the appetite, 
might easily bring down 
the loftiest sequoia.

Depraved sexual deviants,
they deflower helpless roses
in broad daylight; and, like
Medieval artisans of yore
turn hardy zinnias into
empty-ribbed cathedral windows.

Their shells are hard like 
scarabs, but charmless,
slicked with an iridescence
cheap and tacky like carnival glass.
Eager to reproduce their kind, 
they feed and copulate 
at the same time.

Sex has never lost its need
with any creature on this planet, 
least of all these pesky beetles, 
so a potent sex attractant does
the job. And even in the heat 
of destructive flames, they go
at it mindlessly one last time.

Chamber of Becoming

We laid our breath
in the cold dish of morning
not to warm it,
but to watch it vanish.
The way ghosts do.

You struck the match inside me
with a tremor,
like forgiveness
forgot to be kind.

I was not born for light.
I was spilled
like ink across your undone name,
every letter twitching
like a fish on the wrong side of water.

You came in with no skin,
I gave you mine.
You left with it,
stitched to your memory
like a farewell garment.

Now I wander these ribbed corridors,
each echo a footstep
I never took.

Not dead.
Not quite.
Just learning
the shape of love
in an afterlife we invented.

If you'd like the next one,
our merged lament in even darker hues
I am ready. Just say, 
descend.

Floral Gifts

ceiling-to-floor stone fireplace,

uplifted with Mother’s Day gifts:

     amidst the painted flower trio,

sunny bright and purple mums,

yellow glad-iolus, ma-genta roses

in red-ribbed vase, hearth-right;

and butterscotch lantanas, on left…

     now in a planter on the porch,

inviting hummingbirds and butterflies.

The feel-good road

More often than not I chose the feel-good road
the road of instant gratification
the lazy man's road
it was short and lined in devil's blood and pyrite.

The other road was long and tedious
it was lined with breadcrumbs and thin ribbed people
playing dominoes with beer scented fingertips
everybody smiling within the veneer of hardship
they were born within the cocoon of reality and truth-
it came naturally to them
they were the struggle itself
BUT THEY WERE HAPPY-happy they were

On the feel-good road 
thin slippers slap the vomit of untruth 
unattainable wants and unsustainable happiness.
I persist on the feel-good road
a paper mâché skiff upon a metal reef

Transylvanian Gothic

A marvel of architectural grace
Needle-ended arches touching the space
Vaults that look imposed and superimposed
Ribbed ends that kiss the corners, hawk-nosed
Ornate spires like jewel fabrication
Fine flecks and fancies with fascination
Each segment shines with mystic touches.
Fusing faiths of temples, mosques, and churches

The First Date

Let us momentarily contemplate
The discourse on the very first date

Adam: Father You've been busy lo' these six days
          Would it be too much to ask for a help mate?

(From a rib Eve became my wife
Then ribbed me for the rest of my life)

Eve: Oh Adam ! Where shall we honeymoon?
Adam: I hear Eden this time of year is in bloom

(We had our first date in the Pleasance
She bone of my bone. We cleave as one flesh)

Adam: This rose (of Sharon) is for you my bride
Eve: Who's Sharon?!
Adam: Let's take these horses (I've named) for a ride
          Through the Sharon countryside
Eve: Oh Adam! Look at he stars and moon I adore
Adam: Breathtaking my love they've been since Day Four

          Oh my fairest with kisses better than spice
          Let us again be together on Day Eight and Nine

          Now let us return to our demesne
          As Father did intend

Floral Farewell

Velvet red roses stand
cheek to cheek
with daisy faces, ringed
in petal fringes,
sweetly scented
by creamy bubbles 
of double jonquil popcorn blooms
beside a starburst
yellow chrysanthemum,
and long leaves 
squeezed between.
Below, their stem-straws blur
in the ribbed glass jar,
looped with a satin orange bow 
for your 97 years
we must farewell soon.

The loved ones are visiting,
bringing flowers, hugs, reminiscences
for you, last of your generation -
two brothers, two sisters.

I don't want to say, 'Goodbye'.
Let's have a few more days, 
or weeks, or months,
just for keeping company,
like the flower bunch.

LOUD SILENCE -

Loud
Explosive soundings
Environmental vibration eradicate motion
Bombarded sensory thee volumed
Dropped focused turn down
Ribbed quiet
Silence

12/10/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2023

I Want a Silver Christmas Tree

I want a silver tree because I did not get one in sixty-three
She was adamant about it, my great granny Fee.
We gave her one for Christmas, feeling lots of glee.
Didn’t remember they were ugly, said disappointed she.

Why did you want one? Asked her great grandson Lee.
Because everybody on the block got one except for me.
My daddy said they were ugly, she said with a tee hee.
We ribbed her about this forever, loved teasing granny Fee.

Candy Corn and Snowflakes

Intercom: the visuals are incredible!
The spray of candy corn fireworks
and the snowflake stars. Land ho…

…and out come the celebrants. They
Stick their tongue to the flakes. Catch.
the honey Brach’s with their teeth.

Leaves layered everywhere. Seasons
on display. Children’s flower windmills
wheeling. Sun’s mellow-yellow-smile.

Oaks, maples and pines holding hands,
branches clapping, looking up, gifting
edible acorns and prickly pine cones.

The skies grow heavy with foreboding 
as the great and small pumpkins roll in.
Hideous laughter, sinister carvings

on their orange ribbed faces. Seed webs
dangle from their toothy grins. The wind
says, “Boo!” and off go the craven beasts.

Oft the celebrants feel sorry for them,
having most of their insides scooped
and made into the most delicious pie.

They end up taking one in per house.
Each pumpkin shines bright, contained
on breezy porch, scared of the next boo.

Mad Times

MAD TIMES

The season of hope and growth
Following those cold empty days
Dark ribbed ploughed fields wait 
As new life sniffs the warmer air
Bursting forth, as if all new ideas
In shades of lime, olive and sage
Avidly searching to see the sun
Soon to realise their new vision

Wyre

Going home 
across the Shard bridge
spanning a rattle-snaked river 
that bites into the Irish sea
cold-bloodedly pumping
into Fleetwood's gaping fish-mouth. 

Here birthmarks 
are branded with icons
like beach lighthouse at Rossall Point
as Northwesterly winds 
whistle across the dinosaur ribbed sands. 

Yet towers still sentinel 
over the dark valley 
riveted in iron, rusted russet
like warships wrought from steel,

but aspire
like a winged-spirit
above backstreet's cobbled lanes
that echo with drunken frenzy.

The river's stenched breath
perfumes the breeze with sewage leaks
as passing tankers head north
and farm slurry seeps into pure veins. 

Distantly, 
Alveley's coalfields fade 
whose ashen sides once licked 
red ulcers with embered tongues. 
Their slag banks were stacked 
near St Michael's 
whose hidden eddies still swollow
many a beautifully troubled mind.

Now the future skies 
spread star-spangled
glowing with fractured light
sparks that guide strangers 
embracing Morecambe bay's wide  
open seas

Stature

Find my glutton for this rap button to come sneaking up on em/
I’m pretty good at running so let me run it up on em/
Time for me to gain traction with these tracks slung/
Alive more than I ever been in action go figure/
Never still with my stature my line’s never flat sir/
Hearts even more on beat than I need give it to her/
A crib for the burr or heat to surge the birds on my wire  
I ribbed the instrument or sound heard words on fire

Polo Neck

I got a polo neck jumper.
She said they were in.
Pep wears one.
He hasn’t manboobs.
Ribbed, dark grey.
Tighter than it should of been.
With a vintage leather, black jacket.
Sophisticated,continental, 
so I bought a pain au chocolate.
From Greggs.
I think he thought I was francais as
I ordered and added si vous plait.
Then blew it by being unable to resist a sausage roll.
Which later I found out to be rouleau de saucisse, not un sausage roll, si vous plait.

“What the bollocks do you look like?”
“Where’s the Milk tray?”
were the first comments at the pub.
But their jealousy was obvious and measurable, being directly proportional to the amount of beer spat out as I walked in.
I ordered a Pernod chaser with my pint of pale ale, small steps.

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