A coat of light brown and a heart of thread,
Waiting for me on the edge of the bed.
So soft and squishy, a pillowy prize,
With quiet patience and brown button eyes.
With a black little nose and a bright red tongue,
To your comforting spirit, I’ve always clung.
I hold you close when the world feels loud,
Or wrap you in blankets like a terry cloud.
I hug you tight till the worries depart,
And feel your stuffing against my heart.
Sometimes I’m angry and toss you aside,
But Cushy, you never once leave or hide.
I smile at your face when the morning is new,
Finding a comfort that’s honest and true.
I share every secret, my thoughts and my fears,
While you soak up the laughter and dry all my tears.
From your fuzzy ears to your small scrubby tail,
A friendship with you will never pale.
When the day is finally done and it’s right,
I tuck you in with me for the night.
Under the covers, a snug little team,
Floating together through every dream.
Keep us cozy, warm till sun’s light,
My best friend Cushy throughout the night.
A metallic muzzle
breaking through a scrubby bog,
an unlikely find out here
in these rain-riddled marshlands,
I finger-dig the soft ground
to reveal the snout of a snub-nosed
clay clogged revolver.
Who hid or threw this,
this ‘who done it’ out here
is an unsolved mystery
laid to rest
in these acres
of wind swept nowhere.
Bluing worn away,
steel beneath dented and pitted,
firing pin corroded,
an old 38 special,
yet heavy still
with some
unknowable sin.
I took it home -
cleaned it up a bit,
but a week later
buried it
under a weeping willow.
Winter’s bite
is in the air tonight
and the moon is risen overhead
casting shadows like the witches have aforesaid,
but old folktales will not warm my bones nor sweetbread
will provide, I’ll make my bed beneath
the stars and scrubby heath,
then shall sleep.
The strangest and weirdest vision
flashed across the purple wall
painted by a scrubby rascal,
where a blood-stained altar
was used to offer humans to Satan;
the eulogy dedicated to the next victim
was terribly frightening and resounded with sadism:
the specter's eyes were darker than tar
and too menacing to anyone not shouting a line
and did not participate in the daily sacrifice,
but kept away and challenged the guiltless vile!
I tripped on weeping stones
smeared with the stench of blood,
some of them profusely bled;
they shook under my trotting,
emitting many painful moans:
they thought I was their biblical Savior,
little I could do to ease their moaning
and looked away in a mood so sad!
Some see a scrubby, stunted wood;
the pure heart sees a pond.
A vision cast into the could -
the gift to look beyond…
And though the plan has not converged
quite fully in my head,
I simply can’t resist the urge
to rend, uproot, and shred.
Reclaiming bits of Eden, I
clear out the brambled vines.
Creation and destruction, by
this, briefly are aligned.
Fog
The fog lies deep,
Deep as a whisper,
On Sengekontacket pond,
The far shore only a
Charcoal smudge
Engulfed in smoky gray.
At left, the scrubby dunes
Hunch dark along the road.
The sea beyond blends
Seamlessly into the void,
Where tolls the warning
Of a passing, phantom ship.
Then, ahead, out of the mist,
A pair of yellow eyes!
And a dark and formless beast
Slips by me on the road, silently,
Disappearing, winking red
In my rear view mirror.
When I reach the little bridge,
Suddenly the air is clear!
No trace of fog or misty trees
Or passing, ghostly ships!
Without a thought, I turn
And head back whence I came!
I stop along the sandy road,
Take up my steaming cup,
And scramble through the dunes.
I sit, heedless of the damp sand,
Sip my morning coffee,
And listen - listen to the silence.
Peter a farmer from Scrubby Creek,
Seldom washed his great big feet,
His fed up wife would complain
About the odorous strain
When in summer it reached its peek.
While crossing barrens last December night
I saw a ghost in the scrubby growth of trees
He was standing a strawman and I was in fright
In the gibbous moon's diffident light.
The world was an obscuring haze clouding my reason
I padded along in muffled sound as if in a treason
The spooky shade had a little glitch as if to ***** my neglected pitch
In the lonely mist and stony haze I saw the winter season
I traversed the field and reached a pool
The ashgray fog was coming from the cool
I had to wait for the break of the day
To bask my edgy soul in the sun's first ray.
while hills taunt us with scrubby tufts of green
the long fingers of the sun
stroke the horizon
a jet splits the sky with a cloudy tail
rattling the window's glass
and my reflection
________________________________________________________
Contest: "Through My Window" sponsored by Nette Onclaud
By Carrie Richards 1/2114
Nestled deep in the tawny, drab woodland
Sedate cottage neither haughty nor grand
Sparse hovel of unassuming, itinerant brigand
Martial decor of detached highwayman starkly bland
The etched path sculpted by intemperate hand
No manicured garden on the scrubby strand
Briers and brambles errant straggler must withstand
Thatched clapboards stable his stallion firebrand
Unruly swine garnish acorns from scraggly wasteland
Buried deep in his cellar pilfered contraband
Per chance drifter did the terrain assay
And chose that toilsome, forsaken way
A spartan welcome hauteur did convey
No lodgings, accoutrements could sway
If for grace, mercy they did pray
Only a cold shoulder he did relay
If they tested his temperance and sued for trite parley
He reconnoitered their belongings through wordplay
If no net value they were beguiled to betray
Their worthless lives he did indignantly slay
Mountaintops
Mountaintops –
Barren rocks,
Scrubby brush,
Nothing grows there.
Valley view –
From mountaintop,
Lush, green growth,
Teeming life.
People can’t grow on a mountaintop.
We grow in the valleys of life.
People can’t stay on a mountaintop.
We return to toil and to strife.
Faulty compass of drifting swain
Freelancing on arid, desert plain
Passion fires mind of careening train
Burning loins long each satin sheath to stain
Sculpted dunes seductive beauty do feign
Smooth, silky curves do the froward eye entertain
But the silted grains proffer momentary gain
Entrancing mirages with frothy water holes detain
Anon, overwhelming desires the burgeoning libido enchain
Strained limbs long the rite of passage to explain
Scrubby growth shrouds the perimeter of fragile domain
Pubescent psyche with confusing, hormonal signals overlain
The overheated circuits a disoriented path ordain
As eroding winds of doubt doth the surface disdain
Insecure conduits more and more inward shame drain
Seething shadow flutters in constantly changing terrain
Each step on serpentine course causes more growing pain
Until stumbling on rational plateau containing deep, emotive vein
Conquering the debilitating elements that immaturity did restrain
Trying to find something to think about...
sporting yellow shorts, & an old blue and white Jersey...
on my way to get socks to play soccer today...
...My legs are dry... I can't afford the skin scrubby
I need but I can afford new cleats and socks
giggling, trying not to giggle cause I shouldn't be giggling...
...Smiling, life is harder than I ever thought it could be...
...broke...my sponsor didn't show up, many things actually...
that could justify self-pity for a short time.....its tough when
trying means nothing will get better for a long time....its hard
praying when nothing will get better for a long time...
I know you love me God, but I grow suspicious
...wondering if my God wants to kill me sometimes...
It's that hard....I pray to you not to throw me a bone then...
throw me a portion of the bone... still nothing yet... So,
I'm going to play soccer and wait on Him...
A cold moon comes up
After the hot and billowing day
The black beaks, black eyes
White plumed necks
And fanged claws masked as talons
Still sizzle on the sultry brain
There is no safety here
It is a long trek to edge of pain
The constant circle of the crow
The swift alight
The turbid swarming of the flight
The cawings grow
Not trees, barely scrubby thorns
Whose shadows hide the struggle
Between life and death
So urgent nothing is forlorn
No snuggles close to happiness
One only pause to catch a breath
And I walk this Namib place
Towards the moon for one embrace
My father’s timber array arrived on an
overloaded Diamond Reo flatbed.
It dumped oak scraps, leafless dead-woods,
inspiring last metamorphosis to
warming fires come winter’s weather.
Empty, truck leaves then heaves
into a scrubby alley
squeezing by barely.
With its narrow fit made
it disappearing through a backyard gate
into a cloud of its own making
belched from two shaking
upright tailpipes.
Bark cull, coppice slats, saw food pilled
to near roof high. This sawmill refuge awaits
stacking sequent, once cross-sawed
and set to a suitable size for stove fodder.
I am father's volunteer; I am the master stacker
of wand-wood. With my bow-saw in hand,
I look not on labor of hours nor days, but eternities.
In the eyes of evolution's lies I see ancient youths,
countless fellows of ten-years-old like me
and leap with them to the task of cave dwellers.
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