The mountain was wrapped with tall, dark pines
Gloomy, heavy clouds obscured the sky.
Flashes of thunder lit up briefly above.
Timber crackled across the dark slopes.
A ghostly cold wind whirled around the mountain.
Pines swayed against each other.
Then, drizzly rain started to fall.
Birds, small and large, scuttled to find shelter.
We ran together holding wet hands.
Yet we were in love and laughed throughout.
Don’t blame us for getting completely wet.
We danced, slipped onto the wet soil.
I lifted up my head, I kissed the rain.
So did she. We kissed so passionately.
Until we came to the end of the muddy path.
We ran up our new wedded house unto a hot steamy shower.
It was not rain that fell on our faces
But we did not care as we continued our kisses.
Placed 1
Shetland Sheepdog Charlie jumped high in the air
Sheep he could handle, but this creature was unfair
As far as he knew it was an alien or a creature from far away
I was lucky to have my camera that day
I wish now I had put it on video, for it was a hilarious sight
Charlie ran off and hid, almost into the night
The mouse had been scared too, but he was braver now
He scuttled in the barn and hid under the cow
My children were going to call Charlie names like Scaredy Cat
I told them this would hurt him, so please don’t do that
One of them wanted to keep the mouse in his room.
I scooted the creature out of the barn with a broom.
Queen bee had twin girls, one and two.
Who would succeed her? Who would do?
Other bees made suggestions, but they were silly.
Don’t be ignorant queenie said. Her name was Milly.
Maybe one could join another hive, one suggested.
Milly gave him a look that should have had her arrested.
But she is queen bee, and this is her right.
The bee scuttled off to another hive that very night.
She wiggled and jiggled and giggled in bed
It fiddled and faddled and rattled her head
But she wiggled so much that she fell to the floor
And wiggled and jiggled and giggled some more
He muddled befuddled and scuttled around
Till he bumbled and stumbled and fell to the ground
Still he muddled befuddled just like before
And scuttled befuddled through his front door
She came aboard my sinking ship
a death blow to the bow,
attempts to bail and keep afloat
this mariners tattered sails.
Plot a new course and navigate
in storms and angry seas,
this vessel lists in the swells
life plundered by piracy.
Now this new maidens charge
is to steer starboard side,
for a new sheltered port
with rising tides.
This once scuttled ship
ill winds cast adrift,
is now tacking leeward
this sailors gift!
The sandy beach and the ocean
obviously do not understand each other.
Each wave falls upon the shore,
as if it had never met that shore before.
The sand attempts to flow away,
yet scuttled crab legs
and the weight of empty shells
slows it to a shackled crawl.
Eventually,
the unstable edge of that feathering lip
tumbles into the sea.
Then the salty, always thirsty water,
turns away to flow more swiftly
through the open gills and mouths
of the unanchored
and free.
The clouds scuttled across the night sky
obscuring from sight the silvery moon.
Which managed sometimes to peep out
covering the land with shadowed light.
In the shadows appeared mystical shapes
some were vegetation others were beasts
that stalked the land leaving one wondering
were they real or just obscure imagined
creatures fading deeply into the silent night.
Again the moon was covered by profound
darkness and all one could hear were things
scuttling around creeping ever closer to one
so close they came one could feel their breath.
Yet totally hidden from sight until the moon
briefly popped out lighting mysterious shapes
that seemed unreal as they fled from sight
leaving one feeling strangely unsettled
ill at ease one leaves the dark forest to itself.
It was the bronzed bell of a tinseled Ocean ship.
Until Destiny was scuttled by a fiery water witch.
In time, it became the haunting clang upon a reef.
A macabre knick-knack for cliques that ruled the deep.
They returned like blue birds, lonely for a blossoming.
To pay homage to every sailor overtaken by the sea.
They lay bouquets over shadowed grief...
as ghosts pared sweet memories into paper effigies.
Between shuffles of worn decks and ninety-proof lips.
They spin tales of crimson seas and horrible dorsal fins...
Torn hearts and sails, forever on a starboard list.
Drifting between a blue refrain and the salty mist.
In the graying vein of time, everything's forgotten.
The sweet angelic, the mundane, the eternally rotten.
Gravestones hoard salt within their granite cracks.
Tokens to a time when auroras bled into blackness.
One by one the crew will drift from this pearled realm.
Riding Tradewinds into the gilded scented heavens...
or become driftwood in the brackish heart of hell...
as the captain sways to the clang of his beloved water bell.
Sundown came fast,
the fat Blue Heeler
lolling under the low picket fence
suddenly jerked his head up
as if someone had turned the lights out.
A startled Magpie scuttled over the hedgerow
maybe thinking it would be lighter on this side,
it wasn't,
eventually we all went to bed,
but the dog was dead by morning.
PythonPotamus, "Abaddon" Quetzacoatliciously rises from the pit.
Helliopolis' ruins remains; "in the thick of it."
Ra, "Familiars the breeze" a God-imposter, sedicious, piece of Set.
Set Ing the diodes of scene.
All the same, on demand-
quid pro troll for human sacrificing...
icing in their assumed, -
exhumed names of representation-glands,
Idols in strange hands.
Decorating blue,
filling with strangers to one's own land.
Paradise Lost, seeking ills, -ills, ill gotten gains.
Kismetic Frosts relations
of cover-incestuous-religions
summoned in symbiotic trends,
of the means of the end.
On Alien soil, Ra, soon to return
to asphyxiate freedom's change, of wind,
whisping death's-bloom.
DeCoffinated break, drink !
Skywriters, Contracting...
Watching in aiding abetting, the elites.
The discreeted
scuttled upon the otherworldly-
Chariots called PleasureCrafts and Triremes and Juggernautivity Nets.
Lasers to strain in loom, everything you say or do-
you... buy, sell, eat, drink, breathe, think?
Utopia, Trojan Whores Riding a Beast.
Last time he checked the Gate remained locked. Verdant shadows reflect soft running steams falling into still pools. Rushing to hushed sounds abated in calm. Evergreen foliage radiant, vibrant, waiting.
Forlorn crosslegged perch resumed atop faded grass just outside, four steps distant, an already rusting landscape. No travelers left, yellowed path away, parched for nourishing spirit dew, solemnly abides.
Yearning soul, half scarred, half charred, singular nature revealed abruptly, scuttled unwittingly. Eternal truth circumcised nascent pair, to their despair. Vagrants now, celestial estate forfeit for .... one pomegranate?
endless fallen trail
darkness rails against light
man walked from
Eden
An amazing event occurred,
as I was making my way to the theater.
On approaching the playhouse
I saw my own self leaving a back-stage door.
I appeared to be in beggars' rags.
A strange and furtive figure I made,
as I scuttled away from the bright lights
into a dark alley.
Intrigued and yet hesitant,
I followed the doppelganger into the darkness,
and from that night on
I was never seen again.
I'm told an understudy took my part in the play,
but no one in the audience
could tell the difference anyway.
When I pulled open the bag laden with captives
Their eyes breathed a great sigh of relief
Pouring out of the bag like a plague
They scuttled off towards the freedom trail
And wove silken webs to capture their enslavers
Well, wouldn’t you?
There were giant toads in that time
and small descendants of monsters.
Limbs scuttled and leapt,
Thorns and fangs
began to flower
as winged,
but yet brainless insects
fed through straws in their
bulbous heads.
The glory of the frangipani
arose brightly
in a steaming morass.
Green became a color,
rainbows arched over living volcanoes.
These early times
had not any moments
but only a flood of blood,
a flow and pulse.
A simple deadly song
that lingers on
even unto now.
In the dark of the night, on an All Hallows' Eve,
as I lay down my head and got snugged in the bed,
'twas a shadow that bloomed, caused all senses to leave,
as a huge hairy spider crawled, eyes gleaming red!
Out in front, a large sack that she shuffled along,
so I watched as she loped with that load full of gore,
like the beat from a dirge or a horrid old song,
da-duh-DUM, da-duh-DUM, as she moved 'cross the floor.
Shaking hard, to the edge of the bed, silent crept;
There she was, hairy legs, abdomen bulging fat.
Sweaty palms, frazzled nerves, in the darkness I lept,
closed my eyes, held my breath, threw my slipper - Kersplat!
and as she scuttled off, protecting precious eggs,
I wondered how she'd sound with two more dangling legs.
---------------
for the All Hallows' Evening Poetry Contest
sponsored by Craig Cornish
written on 10/19/22
using anapestic tetrameter for the first 12 lines
and iambic hexameter for the last 2 for effect
(howmanysyllables.com incorrectly reports line 3 as 11 syllables due to the ')
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