Short Gnarling Poems

gnarling branches are
grasping up, reaching for rain
in hopes to give life

Russell Sivey

Entrant into Nathan's "Skeleton Tree (haikus)" contest

7/3/2012...

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Dragon gnarling gaze
The fire mouthed beast gurgling
Deluges of flood

And creation cringe
Before the broiling fire, razed
All things with desire

Toppled thrones, doomed kings
Mangled and twisted in wrath
Shambles to the bone

Melting citadels
Smoke choked lungs screams sin's silence
We crumbled to ash...

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Youth is raw and naked
Bare white teeth gnarling
Into the flesh through the bones of life

Laughing the mocking laughter of the undefeated
Knowing all

Proud is a peacock in full color
Hard, strong, tall and beautiful
Youth is stubborn
Youth is glory
Youth is fleeting

Thirty candles on a birthday cake
Welcome to life and living
Welcome first grey hair...

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There survives a burg, strangled by,

A fume as thick as thieves,

Where soaring glass stalagmites screen,

The adroit aggrieved.

Skyscrapers and broad avenues,

Where vast trains shunt and squall,

Where soaring glass stalagmites screen,

The vestige’s caterwaul.

Where night tide is perennial,

The gargoyles chill and ward,

Aged curves and finials resist,

Thick gnarling walls contort....

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From out the copse of gnarling trees,
As nature blinked a rapid eye,
The raven lashes took to flight
Tumultuous in the darkened sky;
And roaring as their flock dispersed,
Peppered shot on grainy sheet,
Fluttered, cawed and squawked a din
With beaded eyes and wings to beat.
And then, as if by some decree,
Recited in the twilight reign,
All was like they’d never been
When nature closed an eye again....

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I knew when sparks flew
From my brand in her cavern,
The friction-lit dark
Fanned the impotent fires;
The charring of juices
Hot, uric and spicy,
Flowed a lateral tango
And the hairs sluiced with life.
With a breath of exalting
The dream turned to torture,
Collapsed in a gnarling
Of dust from the grind;
When done only dying
With memory and meat-hooks
Simmered down upon skin
And the night embroiled vengeance....

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