Unique
Elite swimmer
brown, tailless, Pied-billed Grebes
can float, dive or simply submerge
graceful
dark eyes
cinnamon tone
heard but not often seen
rear end feet, lobed toes, poor flier
gawky
small bird
solitary
widespread, but rarely seen
dramatic silent crash-diver
decent
patient
near to nest bowl
I hide in marsh water
to capture still clear reflection
I wait
Categories:
tailless, bird,
Form: Cinquain
something black and low to the ground slinked out of the woods today
I barely caught glimpses of it because it slid from bush to bush
was it a miniature puma? a tiny ebony black-beauty-like horse?
A tailless skunk? Was it a furry entity from another planet?
I imagined all sorts of things because it was gone quickly.
All day I would come up with another idea about it.
Was it an intelligent head of the headless horseman?
A head that had somehow learned to slink on its own?
In many ways, I hope that it will never return
Because it has given my mind lots of things to think about
New ideas I would have never had without the joy of not knowing
some of my best poems come out of one little event
Categories:
tailless, fantasy,
Form: Free verse
Is it to lubricate and protect my eyes from your flow?
Or do you intend to bring out my joy, sorrow, and rage?
By your stream-like flow to others, you show my grief, I know.
A parrot in your cage, with chilies of care, I engage
What do I suffer from? Migraine? Obsessed teeth? Kidney stones?
Is endometriosis the cause of your constant pour?
Owing to my old age, is there brokenness in my bones?
Has Destiny dug in me her perpetual pain bore?
On the death of my mother, at my innocence, I smiled.
I knew my dad's death well. Lo! You, like a waterfall, fell.
Does this mean that consciousness or awareness, that's hill-piled?
Together with you, I've many a tailless tale to tell...
Everyone who sheds you says, 'I got relieved of my pain".
Who in life, yet, I don't know, wants to cry again... again...
Categories:
tailless, cry,
Form: Sonnet
The legs of the tigress were the first to go;
torn from her in a single vicious bite,
then left, helpless, to watch the rabbit;
bop and boogie around the once fierce cat.
The lion met a similar grizzly fate;
head torn from body upon gleefully which
the monkey did his dance macabre
in front of audience of tailless sheep.
The elephant, and ram, sans legs, of course,
performed a rather rhythmic limbo dance
under a cunning arch of bison, bear, and fox.
Followed by a mystery shape, we'll call a dog.
The turtle and the owl went in one quick snap,
and missed the seal's famous party trick;
balancing a kangaroo, half-eaten,
on his nose while standing on a cow.
The camel eventually broke in two;
beneath the weight of two donkeys and a horse,
causing hyena to start its manic laugh,
but not for long; it, too, was swallowed, whole.
The toucan crumbled under rhino's charge
and fell beneath the hippo's headless feet.
Then just as things were warming up, I found, alas,
no more Animal Crackers left in the box.
Categories:
tailless, animal, food,
Form: Blank verse
A sleeking sharp knife
Piercing an apple color morning of impeccable beauty
Running fast in the noise of the colony
Someone calls out from the roof-
Oh, vile fox gang, release the immovable human hands
A few poor people float lazily past the ear
Smelling the fragrance of steaming rice.
The Tufan mail runs away emitting huge black smoke
Severe shortness of breath in the chest
One has only one's own shadow companion - the godly creature
Having eaten meat and marrow group of tailless jackals leave.
Categories:
tailless, allegory, emotions, surreal,
Form: Free verse
The compulsive
Autism in the like of Julian Assange
And Greta Thunberg is a force for the good
Their passion can for them be tragic
they go to any length to follow the truth.
I had a tailless female dog, circled to find
the tail, till she got dizzy.
Obsessive people can be tiresome, have
great courage and suffer for their beliefs.
Heroes are for the quest for honesty.
We should be grateful.
Categories:
tailless, dark, humanity, purple,
Form: Free verse
She chants stirs the cauldron then coughs up a rhyme
one toad, two dog ears, and one cats tail
three dashes of dragon's blood, four tears from another time
soon the witches of Balsimoon will rise again to hail
and the tailless cat will meow to no avail
She's a gritty kitty, what a pity
I need to cut her tail cuz she ain't pretty
October 23, 2020
Sponsor: Anne Cooke
Contest name: Halloween Meow
Categories:
tailless, halloween,
Form: Rhyme
Obsession
Autism in the likes of Julian Assange
And Greta Thunberg is a force for good
But their passion can be tragic for them
As they go to any length to follow
The mania that rules their life.
I had a tailless dog, who had a mania looking
For its tail, circled till it got dizzy.
Obsessive people can be tiresome but they
Have great courage and suffer for their beliefs
They are heroes for their quest for honesty
For what we should be grateful.
Categories:
tailless, anniversary, april, atheist, baby,
Form: Blank verse
I am a poor tailless cow.
The creator chases away my infesting flies.
I’m clotheless at the prime of the hamarttan
and my only blanket is my feebly tanned skin.
I’m barefoot on the pathful of thorns
and my teardrops reports my miseries to the earth.
I need love and in the midst of mates I go.
I’m trashed with the most painful looks,
and punched with the heaviest words.
My only crony thus remains my mischance.
Every right I’m denied.
And too bitter is my plea to the ears
of the unobliging heads.
My merit is always belittled,
and my promising tomorrow begrudged.
For every good I’m worth I’m sidelined—
that’s why I grow wild!
My fierce eye devoid of their leniency!
My ambition is rent into fragments—
that’s why I bust back so hard!
And in the end I’m felled,
taking my poetic justice.
Categories:
tailless, anger, emotions, loneliness,
Form: Elegy
Murdered in cold blood,
for refusing to be Part;
corruption covered,
I weep for the life cut short,
weep!for I have no one else.
Orphan I become,
mingling with vipers and lice;
In cities of flies,
what can a tailless cow do?
Hope that truth shall come to light.
Contest:"Tanka me" a sad song sponsored by PD
Categories:
tailless, depression, sad,
Form: Tanka
For J. C. Alldridge
Piccolo and been-throated pibroch
Dilating dimpled hood
Spreading photometric darkroom eyes
Waxing waxing matching
Venomous lip to music's piping lip
O Queen of stung dragon-mouthed Po
Dancing girl of nuanceless ancient reliefs
The apotheosis Brahman curling on the neck
Must you now sink sink
Dread watched
Spineless
Into the winding womb wickerwork
Watching watching pipe-eyed watching
Until you slip
Over the sill of the pipe and the lip
Anathema!
Amorphous piteous anathema!
Amulet of Siva!
Licking the boneless air companionless
Then slithering to lie on the trodden path
Must you have this one last lick
A lick that
Stills the
Unheeding
Child astray
Or ripple tailless
In the reedy gust
To the squat charmer's
Hypnotical pibroch
©: T. Wignesan - Paris, 1957 (from Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961; first pub. in "Forum Academicum", University of Heidelberg, 1957)
Categories:
tailless, angst,
Form: Free verse
When I was a kid
I shook the tail of lizards
To make them tailless!
Categories:
tailless, animals, childhood, life, nature,
Form: Haiku