Short Chaffing Poems

Screen of invasion
Chaffing on my thumb’s webbing
My scores about to roll

By Robb A. Kopp...

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Neap tide rising by minutes
swirls me in upset sand
     gritty
       irritating
         chaffing
catches in creases
of furrowed brow.
 Washed up fodder
gifted from the sea
   adds to my heap
   of disuse.
 Backtracks undent the
   sand
unmarking my passage....

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you gave a bajou
and the summer rain
toppled and confused
we left under our own accords

In the morning
we recanted,
sitting in misery
you said you never loved us


we tried to stroke our bruised egos
but the arcane wind was chaffing,
with the rest of your friends
we sweetly languished 
unkissed by the dawn...

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the Seagulls bluff
his claws full of sentences
Languid beads of still water
with Neptunes panacea
Pirates tip toeing
the helter skelter
of a madman's voix
Yet the gentle way
Autumn wheat chaffing
beckoning the best years of your life
Take your stand sang the seagull
Unwrap your plans
Take your best foot forward...

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…waiting’s knife
slices time in broader swaths
stacking jagged moments
chaffing minutes raw, in existential unease
…one second snags the next
                       …the knife dulls
moments fray and shred
tomorrow folds today; time’s teeth - rounded
memories meld a transcendent balm
deeply rubbed by fading voices

a hospice hallway dims…
one light - grows brighter...

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Oh dear oh dear
I'm laughing
My life away I fear
So much I'm chaffing
From the lungs
I can see my abs
Forming rungs
I chase chocolate labs
Because I want to taste
For myself, in my haste
I try to skip
But the trip
Is short
Like a skort
Beneath a shirt
As I flirt
With death
Out of breath,
Cause the tears
Are too real
From my laughter
As the sad clown nears
And I hand him a happy meal
Hope he likes ranch on his happily ever after......

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they live now
in layers of motion and stillness

a fret sawing wind
a chaffing river
have shaped them

limbless bodies
turned upon
a lathe of time

glints of starlight are in them
eyes blinded by too much
of light
or dark

blue veins leach from granite pores
synapse
with bloods tingling clamor
with fingerprints

a molten world
drips green algae
upheavals whisper
from an unending past

a stone thrown back
finding a voice
in an uttering splash...

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The tree
That “Britches” Sees 
1-21-2012

During the frigid night
Hoarfrost has embraced her branches
As a tight fitting tunic, 
Tailor made, just for her.

Night Wind’s chaffing bite 
Has long since given way to crisp morning air,
And snow has lengthened into fog, 
Past where aqueous eyes can take in;

Facing east, car’s window rolled down,
 A broken barb wire fence, this tree,
And a subtle hint of promise, 
Where a rising sun will soon be;
...

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Cypress ‘knee's’ lap in the light
as dusk wades in.

Evening parachutes down,
it plants shallow pother
around ankle-deep trunks.

Anhinga necks stir shadows
under a low moon.
This is the gurgling gills
of a melting evening.
 
Florida ends at every lakeshore
where night-fevers begin.
A heated gloom that thickens
where bugs quicken.

We are locked into the chaffing songs
of crickets, 
the drilling buzz of mosquitoes,
as cypress roots soak
in the dark dank air....

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the chaffing entropy 
of self-maintenance
combing human features
into land-slips

predestined by its engineering
an electric screwdriver
skitters away
from its moving parts

dishes in the sink
soap suds wearing away 
willow patterns

a domestic maintenance 
erodes ceramic bones
they grow thin and break
replaced by tougher plastic bandages

we dry our hands
notice it is evening
turn on a vintage 
hundred year old lamp

few things live longer
than times short shelf-life...

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