~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trapdoor groans—not ghosts,
but hinges shedding rust like snake skins,
old wood sighs beneath the weight of years,
a dry cough of timber settling into itself.
Sunlight, thick as poured honey,
warms the spines of leather-bound scrapbooks
where ink bleeds into yellowed pages.
Grandad’s trunk yawns open:
Inside, a woolen uniform, stiff as frozen fish,
still guards its stripes.
A cracked leather suitcase spills sepia photos—
a bride squinting in the Missouri sun,
her lace gloves chewed by silverfish.
Under the dormer window sits
a hobbyhorse missing an eye,
its rockers having scarred the floorboards.
In the corner, discarded Easter baskets
melt into wicker tumors filled with
fossilized foil-wrapped chocolate eggs.
The beams hum with termite hymns—
tiny jaws dissolving joists
into sacred dust.
But open the window~
catch the updraft of cut grass
from the yard below.
It wrestles with the gloom,
this breath of living things,
and for a moment,
the attic remembers the world.
Silverfish you are well-named,
Silver you have; and fish? Fake!
I haven't read all these books, famed,
Is it, hence, their ribs you break...?
Maps many you neatly mold,
With holes, in nooks, nicely knit;
Throats of my poem books, old,
Have you, dear, knowingly slit...??
21 March 2023
A SIMPLE POETRY CONTEST Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: John lawless
Rhymes Checked At: Rhyme Zone
Syllables Checked At: How Many Syllables
A school of silverfish looked up at me
At least it seemed their eyes could see
I acknowledged them with a bob of my head
They bobbed me back ~ That's all we said
Unwary reader
Silverfish glide across page
Damp infestation.
I could never write a poem about
Horseradish
Dust bunnies
Nose hairs
Rat droppings
A dead roach
Cow pies
Mastication
Silverfish
Ketchup
A dirty diaper
A car engine
Naval fuzz
Cobwebs
Vampires
Microphones
Skateboards
Nail clippings
Torn limbs
I say and then I do.
Emperor dragonfly had a ball
Stag beetle came big and tall
Water springtail brought housefly date
Common cockroach came without a mate
Eyed hawkmoth arrived in style
Caught ladybug’s winsome smile
Praying mantis brought sense of doom
Other mantises quickly left the room
Green lacewing came with water spring tail
Silverfish brought rest of supper from jail
Cicadas arrived with bottles of ale
Unusual feather bug came smelling quite stale
Bumblebee brought fresh honey and wax
Colorado potato beetle was holding his flax
Black ants brought chips from master’s house
Only one empty handed was elderly book louse
Morpho butterflies arrived dressed to dance
You could hear the music half way to France
Emperor Dragonfly’s shindig was a huge success
Firefly made magic with his sexy light up mistress
Everyone had a fine time except Praying Mantis who left mad.
Best Shindig ball the host, Emperor Dragonfly had ever had!
rural sewage, twister tunnel runs
like water damaged dust and rat
feces soaking the lawn down to
a dog in the ground a town over
rusted tin and pewter, twin-sized
coffin in the air with its upside down,
breathing shredded wings of angels,
neighbor's manure & wind blowing
songs to a heart-shaped music box,
crooked lattice peeling splintering
train whistle killing the night birds
dropping them like flies in summer
heat, dripping aeroplane trophies
chipped unscrewed vent whispering
into a hand-held radio, silverfish
in plastic bags hiding girl waiting
to be sought, disappearing in snow
covers in wedgwood stains & dead oak
branches of glass cracking beneath
white lace and clanking metal spoons
carved with the names of alabama
i remember this place, maroon sofa
off-white lead paint, night light on
hand-sewn pillows, empty orange lamp
casting over fields that stretch and
stretch for years im seven and filled
like a tapered glass of cranberry
juice she poured, she pours & pours
When the earth was formed, molten iron sank to its center to make the core.
A cataclysmic meteorite showers that hit Earth after the core formed; they say Earth’s gold and platinum arrived in a meteor showers that lasted 200 million years.
Priced elements rare and highly valued soft golden yellow, silverfish-white most sought after metals in the world.
As the years passed the metals have gradually worn away broken into pieces by wind, water, or other force of nature.
Elements that are heavy in weight, moved through the millennial of years, found concentrated and trapped between rocks, streams, rivers, and ocean beds.
It has been coveted, stolen and buried, and people have died for gold.
Christopher Columbus sailed to America looking for gold.
Mined or dredged as dust or nuggets that can be melted down, shaped and sculpted into any form imaginable.
I like to wear my raw gold nugget around my neck on a gold chain.
4/13/2018
Placid surface
looking glass
still water
Silence but for the cries of ducks
silverfish
minuscule reflections
of an almighty orb
casting its omnipresent being
onto rippling water
Undulations
varying patterns
splintering the smoothness
heartbeats of water
Boatman
ferryman -
a carrier of souls
across Styx
deep water
A pathway to netherworlds
rough water
Copyright Deon J.H. Burger 2014
It sits on a shelf, not quite by itself
Leaning on another, bored by the other
Waiting to be picked, waiting
To be held
It sits in the gloom, of a dusty room
Filled with motes and lost notes
Tomes that have gone home
Others that wished they had
It sits where it has sat
High on a shelf
Through two World Wars
A library in pause
You can see it through a window
A monograph in the murk
The work of an author long dead
Stories once read
From this bound book of poems
Stories once told, yet
No one will hold
This yellowed old tome
These sad pages of poetry
Sheets of simile
And lines of depressed rhyme
Where Silverfish have dined
As it now gathers dust
A must; if it’s to rest in peace
Amongst
This graveyard of books
Its dark in here, there’s a scuttling noise, there is something I see
The dinosaur of the modern age, silverfish are crawling free.
There is a dripping sound; I smell an old wet rag
In fact the smell is awful, it even makes me gag.
I am keeping very still; there is a light in the big room
I see through this crack, even though I am in the gloom.
I turn around slowly; I wish I’d stayed outside
But the smell of food enticed me, then I find I could have died.
Sitting on the wire, a huge chunk of moldy cheese
But still in did entice me, my hunger it may appease.
It was the memory of my little wife that stopped me just in time
When she stepped onto that trap she thought it was a meal sublime.
But I remembered just in time, and now I turn my back
I am waiting for the light to go, then I will start to back track.
No more in this cupboard, will I lurk within
I may find a better mouse dinner, going through the rubbish bin…
© 22/03/2013 ~GG~
Four hundred and eight million years or more
ago, these mandibled arthropods were alive
left years to languish in the fossil drawer,
unearthed again, just crushed remains survive.
These natives of what would be Aberdeen,
by nearly thirty million years, predate
the oldest bugs that anyone had seen --
New York’s silverfish must now abdicate.
Their body shape seems to exemplify
what we today can still identify --
ancestors of our modern dragonfly --
and that they had four wings we can imply.
What does it matter? What’s it signify?
Once life emerged from seas, it learned to fly.
standing on the sand
she lifts her face to the sun
silverfish darts by
Wanton words or bits of paper
Flotsam and jetsam or progenitors
Damp squibs or ticking time bombs
Collect..and recollect
Their golden worth, silverfish and all
Revived or transmigrated
To touch earth’s core and zodiac zones
To recreate vibes syncing with a smart sun
On pretty turf bearing its sweet burden
Of coy blooms or breeze bushed
On mornings lying about in yards like spilt milk
Words that wouldn’t miss the woods for the tree
Moving along paths, straight or wavy
Slicing through sheer life
Leaving left and right little islands
Of sunshine or sombre nights,
Bristling,though, with rain on fresh page
The epic stage for an unfinished call
Once left reticulated with a dumb aridity.
For Carol Brown's 'Pieces of paper..A poet's heart'
By: S.Jagathsimhan nair, 14 sept 11
No.1 in the above contest
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