Swirly
Twirly
Pearly
Swirly
Charcoal moon sketch, swirly, twirly, beam
Crater pockmarked, pearly, whirly, dream
Nascent
Crescent
Ascent
Clement
Charcoal moon patch, nascent, crescent, sphere,
Lunar seas flow, ascent, clement, sheer
Dreaming
Weaving
Drifting
Floating
Charcoal moon watch, dreaming, weaving, scheme
grey rock debris, drifting, floating, gleam
If You Need To Escape,
Need To Know What's Beyond,
Just Spin Against Every Barrier
And Twirly-Whirly Dervishly
Find O ut.
-Gray Squirrel
11-10-2025
I fell in an urn of magic potion.
About my locus, I had no notion.
I found myself on a wide, whirly sea.
My boat had holes. From fall, I couldn't flee.
From shores I seemed to have gone far away.
Sea snakes, cone snails, sea urchins, and stingray…
From these wild creatures, how could I escape?
Perplexed, could I nestle and merely gape?
I had spent my life seeking for meaning.
Towards salvation has been my leaning.
I am moving towards life in my sail.
I feel, in my adventure, I won't fail.
I am playing with mommy’s make up
While she’s tired and putting her feet up
I’m supposed to be having rest too
But face painting’s a fun thing to do.
Mommy placed the curlers in my hair
She tells me it gives me added flair
So I’m painting my face, as mom does
Hoping it makes her happy heart buzz.
My hair will become curly whirly
And my face decidedly girly
With my lips covered in red lipstick
Blusher on my cheeks, and green eyelids.
Mommy is bound to have a surprise
When she wakes up and opens her eyes
I'm sure she'll say that I look charming
Don't know what she means by self harming.
I was a twirly whirly dancing girl
But not alone, for there was another spinning top
She looked like me, had my face and my smile
We laughed the same, an excited giggle really
Sometimes we laughed so hard, we went into silent laugh mode
Staring at each other as happy tears ran down our face
It looked like we were laughing like hyenas and loons
We were but no noise was coming out
Our childhood was fun; we liked most of it.
Everyone in our small Iowa town seemed to know us
We did not have individual names.
We were both called “Stone Twin” or “Twin” or “Twinsey”
We did not care; life was carefree and fun and wonderful.
We loved playing games, acting out Peter Pan, and making friends.
Being an identical twin was so much fun when I was a child.
I dived into the cauldron of magic potion.
I found myself on a wavy, whirly ocean.
My little boat has holes. Anytime it could sink.
Water skins gone empty, I had no drop to drink.
Jellyfish, lionfish, sea urchins, and stingray
How could I from these cruel creatures stay away?
Hungry and thirsty, I find no lighthouse around.
From churches, why do I not hear any bell sound?
I had spent my life seeking to find its meaning.
Towards salvation has ever been my leaning.
I feel I am moving towards it in this sail.
I feel in my adventure I will never fail.
That neighbour has just banged his door.
Again yet again and yet again.
I, a one of superior quality, wish to beat
his barking bonce against the wall of his rathole.
But there’d be no grey matter
to dribble down the concrete.
An ugly slimy mush would not be excreted
from that crumbly, crinkly, brainless brainpan.
No brainbox there to squirt the grey stuff!
Oh, what do I experience?
A swirly-whirly precognition of a pleasurable
banging of that brain that isn’t there?
Do I not wish to tear it into shreds?
Funny how feral thoughts burst into one’s mind.
Again yet again and yet again, this superior
wants to beat and bounce that barking bonce.
(17 Sep 2024)
Seijaku – 8-1-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seijaku
Serenity abides with tranquility
Abiding in beauty
And deep respirations of satisfaction
Ready
Alert
Overlooking tangled mazes of overlapping obligations
Labyrinths of lists -
And atonal demands.
As the sun streaks past engorged calendars
In whirly-gigs of heavy-handed chaos
The shade of tranquility
Stretches out
Looming across the face of serendipity
With the breath of the rose
The whisper of sapphire jewels
Born from oceanic bowers.
In the shadows waits
The gift of each rubric solved
Pushing aside the tyranny of over committed -
In dawns, and Aurora’s ballet in neon slippers,
The spirit dialates,
As moonlight drips from feathery boughs,
Healed from epidemics of minutes
Swallowed by a never resting pendulum.
The poet arises, even blooms,
Ignoring the cataracts of frail dreams
When hurried footsteps and clouded hearts
Still race infected by chaotic delirium
Tripping over beauty’s outstretched boughs
To see – to notice -
To embrace
Lavender, gently waiting, with amazement.
An escapade sweet as a marshmallow day
when tangerine dreams fed our evergreen stream.
Our magnet attraction neath radiant ray
did butter the air where the breezes did teem
in whirly-wind-roses anointing the brae.
Their scent, my surrender, romantic the scheme,
exotic the fever and dance with a flame.
Ah, rapture of capture! The wooer’s end game.
I like to doodle noodles
with my wibbly nibbly pen;
girly, curly whirly, and,
arty farty, too!
Boomers
Bottle caps were currency
Pop sticks were our props
Maple seeds
Were whirly birds
Spinning like a top
Hopscotch drawn on
Down the streets
Jump ropes tied to reels
Double Dutch was fun to watch
Especially for the girls
Quarters pitched against a wall
Closest takes ‘em all
We played that game
With baseball cards
Some lost DiMaggio
We grew up fast
We learned the ropes
And mostly on our own
We’re called the Baby Boomers
We’re "like a rolling stone”
Bill MacEachern August 13, 2023
Squirrely squiggly
Toughly Triggly
Whirly Wiggily
Girly Giggily
Laughingly happy
Graphing her Gaffy
Draffingly Draffy
Slappily slappy
Nonsensical verse
Comically inverse
Maniacally reverse
Fanatically converse
Piggily pig
Jiggily jig
Miggily mig
Squiggily squig
Pecos Bill rode herd in the vast forlorn.
His quiet Paint gobbled buttered popcorn.
A tornado, in a fit,
Came for a whirlwind visit.
“Paint, meet Curley. His back I will adorn.”
Bill grabbed his rope and threw a loop with hope
And saddled the whirlwind so Paint could lope,
Leisurely grazing along
While Bill sang a peaceful song
Though the twister used top spin, Bill could cope.
Whirly raced north swift as antelope might.
Picking up barns, tossing them left and right,
Heaving a freight train five miles.
Bill hung on with joyful smiles,
“Almost beats chasing roadrunners at night.”
Bill rode that twister into a broke nag,
That lay city curbside limp as a rag,
A sadder, but wiser storm.
Where his horse Paint, true to form,
Whinnied by the nag, wanting to play tag.
A jolly sheriff saw Bill ride in view,
He chose at least three tickets to issue:
Parking in a tow away;
No emissions valve that day;
Driving a twister with no license too.
Tale Tales 1 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Jeff Kyser
Date Written: 3/14/2022
Used Poetry Soup Syllable Counter
Stripes as a kitten was all over the face –prancing, dancing, in my face.
We loved to watch him jump, hop, and dance all over the place.
He loved to spot a sneaky fast mouse, and give it a hero’s chase.
Stripes’ energy was well-known; running flat out was his pace.
He gets more excited every time I come, my mother-in-law said.
She tried to corral him, give him catnip treats, get him on the bed.
Stripes would have none of that, he was holding a rabbit, dead.
Of course the rabbit had already lost his chewed off head.
Does he ever slow down? The neighbors asked as he went twirling by.
Stripes was always in motion, a curly que whirly twirly tomcat of a guy.
The neighborhood felines meowed at him and fluttered their feline eyes.
He had litters from the west edge of the Valley way past Van Nuys.
Trixie is my muse, and she is sassy and opinionated.
Her ideas trump mine each time.
I am amazed and amused as she takes over each poem.
She takes no prisoners, and laughs at my consternation.
Assertive? No. Aggressive actually.
Determined. In charge.
Capable? Certainly.
I can hear her giggling when she wakes me
Usually around three a.m., the witching hour.
She blows a trumpet, clogs, whistles.
Whatever she has to do, to get my attention.
I start a poem and bam.
There is an ending I had never suspected.
Not occasionally. Almost every single time.
Trixie is my muse. She is a whirly-twirly girl.
She lives dazzling and sparkling.
She is joyful, and enthusiastic.
I am so lucky she is my muse
even if she smacks me upside the head sometimes.
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