Varicose Poems | Examples

Blue cheese and old pickles

I shudder while peering at sepia photographs,
showing visits to my maiden Aunt Hilda’s house.
Even though I was very young
it was clear she didn’t tolerate children.
I was to be ‘Seen and not heard.’
Pa said I wasn’t to utter a word.
I loathed being pushed and forced to kiss her.
Aunt's wrinkled leathery skin looked like
she’d been pickled in vinegar.  
 
As she waddled around with a damp duster,
wiping at my finger marks that only she could see,
the wooden floorboards creaked like old bones
for she was grossly overweight.
Her buxom breasts smelled awful
and emitted a musty, moldy, cheesy smell.
Stretchy tan tights were never able to camouflage
the vivid blue bulging varicose veins
which snaked from her calves to her fat ankles.

The old sour puss passed away when I was six
Now, as I reminisce, I will no longer remain silent!

Swimming in Grief

It is as if cloudy eyes forecast rain
And the darkest heartache
Bleeds grief like varicose veins
All blue and distorted with pain
Hope is aborted and sadness 
Is a black freight train of thoughts

Drowning my wake my sleep my faith

I try to smile through it but fail 
A grimace of green slides in a wail
Finding no comfort in other widows 
My grief is a powerful hurricane sucking soul
Drowning in grief stuck lamenting
No poem strong enough for venting

Every emotion a shadow of grey
Will I ever find light again in day

Petals of Pain

Turquoise tears stain my face
Like violet varicose veins 
Stains of sentimental sensuality
Wrapped in white fears and black feathers

For love has fuschia flown away
Ruining reverie’s red roses 
Turning them black decomposes
Any ink dried died in letters for love

Would have fell on silver sword
Sacrificed, sliding through heart
Silky bloody poetic death 
He saves a cutting of brown hair
And a crimson rose of despair
Pressing between pages of art
Like my onyx broken heart

Was only a notch on burnt belt
Firey from love’s hazing hell
Wicked love spell wilting passion
Kisses rationed refusing
To hold wet tongue’s telling
Of rebelling rose’s rise
In spirit despite demise 

Petals of purple pain 
Painting passion with rain
And teal tears tangerine train 
Of torment trailing behind
Like a wedding dress 
Of jilted beauty 
Doing duty during dilemmas 
Flower to remember
Pressed between pages
Of a little black book
Of love unreturned

FROMAGE BADINAGE

FROMAGE BADINAGE

Some cheeses improve with age
But, in danger of being verbose 
Just serve me plain and mature
Yellow, without that thick rind
And tastier on the tongue, I find
Not fancy, with that false allure
As some blue veins are varicose
But wait, there is a war to wage

Never the plastic American kind
But calling it sharp, it’s still bland
Some made backwards, as Edam
There’s French ones, some smelly
I’ve seen them advertised on telly
As cheese, Philadelphia is a sham
And yet so few dairies understand
Please keep it natural, not refined

A few odd cheeses can squeeze by
As Greek Feta or Cyprus Halloumi
From Italy, there is Mozzarella too
For pasta, it is Parmesan, of course
With a true origin one can endorse
All should be entitled to their view
I report what I taste, so just sue me
And crumbly cheese makes me sigh

Ironing

The afternoon sunlight filtered through her window drapes
revealing each age line molded to her face
alone in the dusky shadows working in her measured way
a basket of clothes at her feet

one by one she pulled each wrinkled cloth out
and began to iron their folded lines
the sound of steam broke the silence
a can of starch was on the table
its contents sprayed from time to time
her eyes never left her ironing board

she never noticed day had turned to twilight
though the sun was setting outside her window 
she hadn't eaten all day
focused on her chosen chore
to do for her children...no matter the length of time
or the pain that burned inside her swollen legs
of varicose veins

she stood sturdy undaunted by her task
quiet, solemn, motion upon motion
so was her gift to those she loved
it was her way
thinking of others before herself
she was my mom
and her gift was unconditional

Ecchymosis

inflamed by its sputtering,
cavity muttering-
opened by oaken and metal frame fluttering,
lapsing from pavement and pierced into meat.

uttered uncomfortably, aortas ushering,
sizing in varicose clumps that then gush and bleed-
underneath-
addling- 
marrow now callousing,
blood pools in pockets that rise then fall avidly,
omen of tragedy-
spilling haphazardly-
out through the holes in the abdomen cavity,
ribs weaving in with the antlers and atrophy, 
breaching the velum, the lungs, and the tapestry
matting the fur and impairing anatomy,
mottled in apathy-
unsatisfactory,
violently waning to seize.

soothing the battery
bathed in a subtlety
gathering suddenly,
proboscis covering-
over the spills-
haemolacria bubbling,
butterfly, moth, and diptera now summoning-
spreading, embedding their needles and string.

bleating, unfleeting lachryphagous meaning,
now turning the pool to a flowering weave.

Of Sallow Pallor

Trust is an oak tree with shallow roots.
so very treacherous in windy weather.
I feel as though I'm glued to the floor;
pinned like a moth to an insect display.

I wish to leave this horrible evil place, 
run far away into the cold, dark night.
In the flickering shadows of mankind
sympathetic words are a honeycomb, 
sweet to the soul; healing to the heart.

Dreams rise and fall like lunar tides;
engrossing thoughts flood the brain; 
as blood through old varicose veins.
Flotsam strewn about dying fields as
jetsam falls from darker, foggy skies.

Face rises to the sun, a sallow pallor.
Vultures perched, perversely hawing;
a flag is folded in presentation style;
roses tossed onto a shiny new casket.
The eve of one's quietus has arrived.

Behold the Workings

A spider thin calligraphy, a varicose script
upon the shallow sheen of mortality.

Are these the genetics of a divine act
arriving as green stems,
weeds and blooms all in a tangle?
A scratchy nib of doodled ideas?

Behold the dying and the replenishing,
the glory of the shedding.
All this upon a tumbled forest floor
where imagination plods daily.

More marks upon a blank page
developing slow
in the low light of scribbled thoughts.
More night flowerings and late sweepings.

Come To the Hairy Leg Ball

Come old and young, come big, little, wild and tall
Come down to the Legion, join the Hairy Leg Ball
Bring your varicose veins, please do not stall
Bring your grossest. hairiest ugliest furriest legs 
To the marvelous, magical, loveliest Hairy Leg Ball

We will have razors to shave off most of your ruff.
We will hold you down hard, so you don’t give us no guff.
We will shave off your fleas, your lice, and all other stuff
If you give us a chance, we might make a swipe at your ****
All are welcome – the feeble, the wobbly, even the buff.

Varicose

You're so varicose vein,
Youth is gone again,
I suppose I'm still lucky,
I found my glasses, you see,
That's as good as it gets today,
Let's hear it for oldies, yah!

Pensioners, Come Tomorrow

What can it be if not ignited tension
Among retirees waiting for their pension
That weakly caters for their weekly ration
Their numerous legs, hundreds of suspension:
A carbon copy of the criminal’s in a police station.

Long, I’ve been watching their tired faces
And ceaseless circuitous paces,
All of them buffeted by  the issued new orders
About which they wouldn’t tell others…

So, the Ministry won’t immediate payments be making
For the breath of relief they should be taking
And for long sitting on retirement seats,
occasionally their only nurses for roaring heartbeats
And varicose veins of legs deserving an apology.

The Ministry - for Goodness  Heavens!-
can, herself, spare the Image of Black Ravens
with the firmest farewell to “Come Tomorrow” Announcements,
Often her making time-seeking searchers of misplaced documents.

The Lotus Eaters

Those over 50's holidays
that they advertise on TV
must really do people a power of good,
at least that's how it seems to me.
Their smiles are all truly dazzling,
soft-focus smooth is their skin,
their trim, sun tanned bodies really do suit
the wonderful clothes they're filmed in.
They sit eating salads, al fresco,
a glass of white wine at their lips,
and nobody suffers lumbago
or limps from their arthritic hips.
Disembarking from liners for shore leave,
or boarding an exotic train,
there's never a sign of an arthritic spine
or a bad case of varicose veins.
I've not met these people in Derby,
so maybe they all live abroad,
all sunning their bits over in San Moritz
which is something I cannot afford.
So when I at last claim my pension,
and have lots of more time to kill,
it won't be a sun deck in Paphos,
but more like a caravan in Rhyll.

Norwegian Blue

to norwegian blue
another more solid version
of me and you
another varicose vision
of wood and glue

Maladies

I don't even think about my Arthritis,
Since it was eclipsed by the pain of Bursitis;
And even that barely rates a mention,
Since my neuralgia over rides it's retention.

My fallen arches I barely notice,
Since the varicose veins in my legs diagnoses,
The reason I reach for a sleeping pill,
When I get off my feet and my legs won't be still.

Whenever I find a new pain it's a blessing,
Takes my mind off the other things I've been addressing.
Seems the stiffness and pains of old age are upon me.
I'm just not the spritely young thing that I used to be.

Varicose Veins

Upright and mobile with the help of a cane
So I still have some years though a lot has changed
When age takes hold
And you see some mold
Maybe time to check out those varicose veins

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