Spindly Poems

In a Garden of Dresses, I Am the Thorn

Do you
Think 
They noticed me? 

I mean 
I noticed 
Them 

Perfectly 
Perfect 

The epitome 
Of beauty 
Without lifting a finger 

Their skin 
As clear 
As my delusions 

Why did I 
Pick
This dress? 

How did I
Walk out of the house 
With the smile of “I look pretty”? 

They must think 
This bow in my hair 
Looks idiotic 

Plus the 
Holding my sweater
In front of me 

To hide 
My not 
Spindly frame 

Do you 
Think 
They noticed me? 

I mean 
How could I 
Not notice them? 

Their plates
Were never 
Full 

So I
Overflowed a napkin 
And made sure to throw it away 

Or cleaned up 
My lipstick in the bathroom a few times 
If I did cave in

If I left now
Do you think 
They’ll notice me? 

Like
Leave 
And not say anything?

They definitely wouldn’t 
Notice me 
Then

a twilight sonnet

   Twilight tiptoes through curtained clover leaves
Cape starlings stanzaed thank mighty Lord
spindly legs shake on spritely evensong breeze
closing chirp reminding that day is just a chord 

What achievements marked chanting hours
manifesting with helio hands and heedful head
paper, pencil, thoughts danced about in bower
patterned sensations twirled needle and thread

A silent hymn I sit awaiting bright sickle moon
indwelling spirit dissolving wispy wanton wishes
blossoms lotus, liberates mind a special boon 
intentions iambic winking flimsy floral fetishes 

Moment to moment tasks tangent complete 
each twilight twins a masterful morrow sweet 
    
                 __________________

The Artist

  Wide eyes cast their gaze upward 
    ‘Today’s Spider Web’ mocks him 

  Eight spindly filaments weave a web
    Are these hands not as delicately bred

misty day

Misty Day
Glancing out of the window, I see the potted plant
 on the sill and the house on the other side of
 the road, the light is fading, and the plant looks as
 sad as a whitewashed wall in the rain whiteness
 is an illusion caused by the sun.
Mist of grief encircles olive trees, are blank
 tears on my almond tree´s spindly twigs, yet inside
 each droplet sees a tiny world reflecting my own,
 only with greater incorruptibility of the untested.
 And far away, as a whisper, a mother sings a lullaby.

« O

A Lament

I spend my time,  staring at the sky
jealous of those trees that can reach such great heights
I see their spindly branches winding out into the atmosphere
I feel the heaviness in my limbs
Aren't we both reaching out for you
Grieving my inadequacy 
 While I stand here with my empty arms outstretched

From the Bones of the Dead

The poppies grow where the bodies lie.
They grow out of their skulls;
Out of bullet holes and discarded limbs—
Anything is their home.
And in this brutal massacre,
A young poppy seed finds solace:
Somewhere to grow old.
The poppies reach upward,
Each like a spindly, quivering finger
Pointing to the heavens—
Come rain; come shine.
They are an unwavering beauty
On such a deadened and weary land:
Flattened and trampled by the lost souls,
Still searching for their justice
And for their lives back.

Nature's Sentinel

In a great, entangled forest, stands a metal monster—
An impossibility of nature, made by man. Alone;
Broken—it looms over all things natural
And asserts its right over the creatures that belong.
They do not look to him (this fake, metal being) —
It cannot even breathe or make noise!
Apart from the gears whirring in its machine form.
It is hated and unwanted. Even by its creators,
It has been abandoned. Now, it will never be found,
And it will be left for time to deal with; until it is
Creaking and groaning and falling apart with rust.
One day, soon, the grass will grow so thick and wild
That it will wrap its spindly fingers around the beast's leg
And grip it tight. The weeds will never let go—
The metal monster will never move again.
The whole of the forest soon will envelop the machine
Until there is nothing left to be seen of it. Until it is
Destroyed, like it was never there. Gone:
Prey to the unknown and the forces of nature.

enigma Haiku 208

harvest moon
spindly pine tree's darkness
silence sleeps

1/13/2024

From The Poets Laboratory

Wings are eyelids.
A mind can be left aside on a workbench
while the brain teaches the sky to sleep.

Mother lives in a jar in an old curiosity shop.
Father enters the world bringing extinct words
he has found in the future.

Your child is not yours; it is a god you found
in a self-help book. You create symbols,
give them meaning, sell them for nothing.
Invisible pennies drop from the hands of a beggar.

The laboratory smells of lilacs it is your mothers
favorite color, purple gives her a headache.

You build talking machines, they march up and down
on spindly metal legs, their feet tap-dance.

Here you are a family of one, the solar system
lives in one eye, the other is a deep space
where poetry births its many ghosts,

they arrive as a blue flame when you ignite
the rocket fuel in your Bunson burner.

THE PIPER and HIS TUNES

At the crossroads
The bald old man
With his gray stricken beards
Caressed his antiquated flute
Perching on his cracked dehydrated lips
With his spindly fingers
As he nonchalantly reeled out his tunes
He started with the beautiful tune 
Of the defiant bed bug mercilessly bearing down on the torso
As in a depraved Mamba choke hold 
On it's gasping victim
Next was the leaching lice
Digging, sinking and sucking deeper 
Into it's anemic victim
Then he played ringing in the ears
From renegade mosquitos
Next was a nation, it's people and politics of bitterness
Then he played a reclusive and resigned generation
Deserves the leaders they are saddled with
Next was the tune of the city called Sodom
Then he played the tune of "oh king pharaoh let my people go"
Finally, he graduated to the grand tune of: "he who fails to plan, plans to fail."

Thanksgiving Refuge

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, I got a jolt,
I was driving my old bucket of nuts and bolts,
along the country road on a chilly autumn day,
Saw wild turkeys walking, they'd be ambling awhile,
I slowed and rolled down the window to say,
"Hey gobblers, soon it'll be Thanksgiving Day,
Run! run as fast into the woods as you can!
As soon hunters will be here, you'll be stuffed in a pan,
with sage and butter, and, may I be bold-
you'll be on china trimmed in gold!"
Their eyes got as big as fried eggs,
never saw turkeys run so fast on such spindly legs!
Deep into the timber they sure did disappear,
that Thanksgiving everyone went vegetarian-
and the turkeys had no fear. ~

The Last Leaf

The leaves begin to change their hue and fall,
The tree's look like skeletons all spindly and tall.

We run through the piled leaves, kicking them up like a cloud,
The chidren all excited yelling out so loud.

The ancient gnarly oak looks as if it only has one leaf left,
All solitary and lonely looking all bereft.

Then the softest gust of breeze finally brings it fluttering down,
The tree is finally naked without it's green leafy gown.

Decayed

What causes a relationship to fail?
Decay sets in when thoughtlessness persists,      
when selfishness extends beyond the pale,
and chances to show love are blindly missed.         

Vacated houses crumbling with decay
once teemed with life and families with dreams.
Now in the wind, these spindly structures sway,
not willing to give up the ghost, it seems.

But Nature’s life-renewing power leans                
upon decay of plants. Like night and day,
these opposites, decay and growth, are means   
that lead to all Earth’s glory on display.
    

      Each year Spring plants and flowers grace the Earth,     
      for God decreed that death results in birth.

Valentino, Romance Never Dies

"Valentino, Romance never dies" 

Witness the hirsute main cat eloquently honey trapped,
the lap dance laps all the cream for what it's worth,
squeezes life out of the heart into the flipped mind
of Valentino, the bird chirps, 

“romance never dies, in truth”
cats kissing caged canaries singing cabaret
Valentino, romance never dies, 
not today, never not today, forsooth

(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)




“The soft wolf tread
Thru Emerald Forest 
he was lookin' to make a bed
There in the spindly thicket 
softly did he tread
The soft wolf tread”




Credits:

Rupert Valentino;
The Lap

My Shiny Beetle

My Shiny Beetle

I found a shiny beetle,
I call him Glitterbug Jim.
He’s dead and I’m heartbroken
So I’m going to immortalise him.
I’ll wrap him round in resin
So all the world can see
His spindly legs and shiny bot
For all Eternity.
Yes, I’ll wrap him round in resin
And write a mournful verse
So he can rest forever
In his little resin hearse.

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