Tentacled Poems | Examples

Longevity of Hate

Written By:  D. Collins 6/21/25


The longevity of hate has a wide-ranging girth.
It lies dormant for a while then has a drastic rebirth.
Since the 12th century hate has destroyed many populations.
The glimmer of gold, theft of land, and complete annihilation.



Anyone that is different are categorized as lesser men.
Yet, those responsible claim they're devoted Christians.
A skin color, your religion, or whom you choose as a mate.
Will certainly expose you to the longevity of hate.



It's a multi-tentacled beast that goes into foreign lands.
After not controlling the Poppy trade they fled Afghanistan.
Rare earth minerals is now top priority on their list.
Should you choose not to concede your life is at risk.

NIGHTERRORS II silence speaks volumes

Shattered, 
A city skyline weeps within
Tendrils of the deep
A broken world, time's cruel grin.

The compass needle spins insane
Lost in a dreamscape's refrain
Echoes of what was
Whispers in the silent mist.

The sky bleeds into the labyrinth
A canvas of lives lived out fast
Words etched in stone
that haunts forevermore. 

What Jagged maw, extends into eternity 
titan broken, spilling gears of city, drowned.

Pieces and parts of a mortal tear
twist in the hollow of time
 a nest of nightmares absent of rhyme.

A single, eye stares from the depths
reflecting a desolate shore, a skeletal horizon.

A monument to forgotten industry 
in the machinery of despair.
Dreamscapes bleed.,
Tentacled secrets unfurl. 

Time is bent and broken
Points on a compass unseen. 
Is this rhythm or requiem? 

An abyss stares back, unblinking. 
We are both creators and destroyers, 
Of oblivion. 
Listen closely.
The silence unspoken.

Aboard the Deck of Dopamine

Sea surreal in darkest nets
Nocturnal-ness in jaws and tentacled breasts
still the thrill, breathless at my thoughts
the sea - a catch

The sea a catch, oh my stars
that settle like flickering candles
on tremulous waves
The sway, the dance, oh
the romance of candlelight

aboard the deck of dopamine
I resist the thought
that I’m in-between
cruise ala royal dreams

The drift of ebb and flow
I fly so slow, slipping
undertow, envisioning
serpents and maids

I’m made for the sea
See my tales splash
flibberty-thrashing
about in a net

netting the seashell gold
of surf and turf
sweet sands that tug
my eyes and heart
I blink

back tears
When will we see each other
‘gain, this match

of tenderness and angst
Let the torrents roar
Let the sides capsize
Let me touch your silkiness
your depths
your traps

of playfulness. The reader
must think me silly
as I surrender to the crests
and climb aboard
to see the sea
and sky collide

I’m given over
and under
in thunderous claps
to sated and salted
direct attack

of anything that might arrest
my joy
my exploration
my destination
my ploy

to dream without danger…

Anxiousness

Even leaning, with fright's hand
In the mouth clenching.
Upsplashed of an unfathomable
Woe, foreseeable.

On edge, more breathless, till
Mind, in giving way
Slime-tentacled, squeezed of whose grasp
For such visions gasp.

The Sins of the Father Heaped Upon the Son

We four men raise our hands with blood lacerated to be written upon a book named doom. Whose words bring that which was grasped and phased into our minds by ghoulish men with scales in their hearts as they lead to the door.  our deaths pass on to our sons. The first to be split into two the second to be faithful to the cosmic king. The third he stands behind the curtain. The fourth man and bat wrapped in flames stand in the middle. These brothers stand in the eye of the storm's tentacled threshold.

One Mind

We are of One Mind -
a tentacled,
ethereal monstrous mind,
not inherently vicious
but nevertheless
                prone to random acts of terror.

One Mind swims,
slips through your time and mine.
Thought-eels mate in that gelatinous
                    body of I ’ness.
Legends grow into settled science,
words like krill swell
reach Brobdingnagian proportions,
become too big to fail, reach into the realms
        of deniable plausibility.

Of course we must argue and differ,
debate and judiciously slaughter;
alone we are sprats and minnows
in the belly of a godly Kraken.
Of course we are One
but I do believe
    that you’re all in My ocean
and I am Not in yours.

The Thing

A night tide expels it,
leaves it 
wallowing.

Salt has blistered,
nippers gnawed.

The carcass tumbles.
Tattered flesh flaps,
bone snaggles bone.

A figure emerges,
as if a mangled person
was escaping 
the weakening clutch
of tentacled coils.

Waves lap
at the lolling mound,
cavities rupture,
gas bubbles take
luminous shape.

A figure emerges,
hatching
from rancid offal,
it stumbles toward
the lights of a village.

Remains hang together
clothing a riddled form.
Strips of denuded meat
drag behind.

It is famished,
even though its belly is 
a bladder of corruption,
still, it is hungry.

It sees the warmly lit tavern,
imagines 
a sweet fried fish on a skillet,
a glass of strong ale 
waiting for the touch
of its macerated lips.

It had been a long swim.

Starfish-

'Starfish!' said I, 'thing of a moray eel.'
Be it black ocean space;
Or in the breathing coral seas;

Back into my memories squiding;
To warn me about the sea turtle;
The cetacean coral reef crabbing;
Sharks and piranhas kidnapping;

I heard a tentacled, seagoing inking;
I wrote a story with the octopus pen;
I was a harbour porpoise and you a tuna sandwich;
The brokered bottlenose whale blossoming;

The sphinx moth singeing;
Only this and a sturgeon;
In there stepped a shovel nose 'whale shark';
In there stepped a 'lake trout.';
Dolphins lookout;

To warn me about the bluefin;
The foul flatfish forging;
All my soul within me gorging;
In there stepped a coral sea cucumber;

I have dreamed of the spadefish;
An echo murmured back the word, 'channel catfish!'; 
The brook trout smiled;
I felt compelled to sniff the squid;
Smells like fish;

It was squish;
Take thy bluegill from out my heart;

Embrace the wish;
Starfish





6/20/20
WRITTEN WORDS BY James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©

Sunset

Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
								
This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt, who died April 4, 1998.

Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.

Keywords/Tags: sunset, age, aging, death, grandfather, grandson, grandchild, family, grave, funeral, loss, twilight, night, heaven, transcendence, tribute

Vogleweh

I walked without her through a tentacled forest. Skulls broke beneath butters. A scarlet-and-gold clad Legionnaire, unequipped for darkness, richer than Deutsch chocolate. A lance bogged in moist marsh. Stripped bare and skull dragged, I broke free, into the forest. I walked there, without her.

Monster Trees

Monster Trees 

Monster trees reaching down through insane skies like spiders,
They see something coming in the green benign stretches,
We are the onion ring bearers wearing dark-day secrets.
We know what happens when bearded eyes shut tight,
When the dead wave from hearses designed for blind drivers,
As the hatchet girls crawl into the blast barges of mindless ropery,
Monster trees with long tentacled arms scoop up the night cats.
They reach for berries made of balsa wood and Melba toast;
They reach down from far distances seizing innocent souls crawling,
These ghost trees, floating as life clouds, through memory and time;
Through deserted forgotten neighborhoods with skeleton trellises.
We are the lettuce turners, the meat shredders, with raised hopeful fists.
Wearing chiffon camisoles made with Melba toast and dark-day secrets, 
The hatchet girls raise lapping glasses of mad rum to the blast barges.

Still the One

Will you marry me?...enamored the deep gaze.
Twenty years ago , I mesmerised into your maze.
    
Razzled dazzled life, beleaguered in  myriad phase.
Pristine peace I found, hugged in your embrace.

Those quarrels and niggles, grudge, grin of grumble.
Those laurels and giggles, touch within was humble.                       
                                                        
Annoy of careless throws, those wet towels on bed.                               
I waited for your rose,...  that 'wow' you never said.

In silence reigned Love, so majestic like kings.
I grew strong in your arms, you flew high on my wings.
         
You're still the one...tentacled together.  
You're still the one...pinnacled forever.

The Trust of our old treasure...
Our love ?...How do we measure?



15th September 2018.
Still The One Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Michelle Faulkner 
(Couplet form)

A Spiracle Leap

A SPIRACLE LEAP

The spiral staircase made her high heels sing.
Round and round, Suzette tapped a snazzy dance.
Her smile sparkling, ears dangling with butterfly wings.
Curves on fire, tights and a bodysuit, tighten his trance.

Her sugar cane a la morse code, a hypnotic prop.
Brady’s heart making love, promising everything.
The wings of her bedpost become a silk backdrop.
Occasioned honeymoon, death claimed her wedding ring.

From here the City churches pierced the mist,
shrouding every living part inside his tortured chest,
clamoring to raise the dead, in rage, with tentacled fist.
Like a hammer to a crucifix’ nail, he pounds his breast.

The creak of her satin-lined coffin, pure and white,
speaks to his quietus soul — her shut eyes aware.
Suzette spoke in a spiracle leap, from the box, sans sight.
He closed it, and, now smiling, crossed the square.

Holy Orders From Far Above

Sister Mary Catholic never tells a lie
Trust her in her order to be pure
Every word spoken under the habit screams
Penance requires suffering
Nuns are likely to be abducted
Taken aboard an alien ship for treatment 
Bug eyed tentacled creatures travel through space
Looking for old ladies in long black robes with rosaries
Who simply accommodate the flavor of the day in prayers
Probes that don't always offer pleasure come with a price
She returns from beyond the stars not quite the same
Some orifices are considered sacred
Sacrifices must be made for science
Some times she cracks a smile while being violated
These heathens will be converted by her touch
A bar of soap to cleanse their awful breath
Scalding hot water to purify dirty filthy minds from sin
Is what religion requires for non human beings 
Sister Mary tells her story to the priest
Who vows to keep her secret safe from outer space

Oh Sage Osage

Aged Osage;
twisting, turning, 
tentacled specter of the soil; 
centuries of thrills, you have seen.

Gnarly old fingers, 
still reach for brother sun’s embrace 
and you share your elation freely.

Stories told in limb and bough, 
are road maps through time; 
I see that history, 
can hide nothing from you.

I listen to your whispers; 
I hear your songs, 
on the tempestuous winds.  
What a study in tolerance you are!

Arthritis specter in the moonlight; 
Story teller of old; 
I visit and am inspired.

Trees, like humans, have wisdom to share 
and tell their stories to those, 
willing to listen and learn.  
An education is found in every tiny seed.

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