Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
Terra cotta, craggy rocks
Scattered boulders, building blocks
In shades of sienna, ochre, buff
To form this high and hilly bluff
With sunlit ledges thin and wide
Place for hyraxes to sun and hide
Cerulean, azure, clearest blue
The cloudless sky that does imbue
Aquamarine lake, with cobalt tints
To gently ripple with sparkling hints
Of gleaming, flashy, silvery scales
With speckled bodies and stripy tails
Chartreuse, dappled, shades of green
Of forest, jade and so serene
Leafy, verdant canopy high
With soft and breezy, gently sigh
While down below in shades of lime
Fragrant flowers so sublime
Scented blossoms in fuchsia flush
And ripening berries in magenta blush
And poppies scarlet, crimson reds
Among saffron yellow daisy heads
With tangerine buds on sage green stems
And luminous violets these little gems
While in the distance, misty rose
Of lavender mountains in repose
Against a background, lilac-puce
And threadlike clouds not yet profuse
Blending into salmon pink
As the sun begins to sink
Plain glass inside the window frame
Now stained with colors of fiery flame
The last rays of sunlight on the glass
In incandescent reflecting rays of brass
And the ethereal golden radiance of day
Passing into evening’s own bouquet
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2006
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
Beneath the deep blue ocean waves
In coral crevices, holes and caves
Exists a creature of the deep
There upon the rocks to creep
While through the water he jet propels
With muscles that contracts and swells
This invertebrate is soft and pliant
From smallest to the biggest giant
With bulbous head and eyes with slits
It waits and watches using wits
Anticipating its prey to grasp
And then with suction caps to clasp
With no bones to keep its form
It can change and so transform
And squeeze into the smallest spaces
Into tiny fissures and thin ledge places
With eight long arms and caps in rows
If losing one a new one grows
And when afraid or to confuse
They squirt out ink a flawless ruse
Or change their color with special cells
Intent on using magic spells
Their blood is colored blue not red
They have two eyes upon their head
Inside their gills and body parts
They have three beating, blood filled hearts
Their intelligence is far superior
To other fish, that are inferior
They have good memories, both long and short
And can learn new tricks if they’re taught
A shark it can so easily kill
By holding it so very still
With camouflage it can achieve
A form and shape that can deceive
They have an excellent sense of touch
The Devilfish its other name
An octopus, yet just the same
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2006
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
Spiders – Arachnids
From the tiny pinhead Samoan Moss spider
To the huge Tarantula with legs spreading wider
Exists a diverse and interesting creature
With many a color and many a feature
Comparing ounce by ounce with steel
A spider’s silk is much stronger and real
Made up of proteins, natures building blocks
That can absorb even the most violent shocks
Honey Bees – Apoidea
These amazing insects with incredible ability
From honey production to their communal civility
As the dance and waggle to show direction
Towards nectar and pollen for their collection
Using the sun as a reference for flight
Seeing with their eyes the ultraviolet light
Carrying their loads on electrostatic legs
Back to the hive for their larvae and eggs
Leaf Cutting Ants – Apoidea
These small busy insects with dynamic strength
That can carry a leaf five times its length
Way underground, into chambered nest
With vigor and vitality and so much zest
To lay down these leaves to feed its batch
Of harvest fungus in their garden patch
They can carry a load thirty times their weight
And build a mound that is mighty and great
Butterflies – Lepidoptera
These angelic creatures with iridescent wings
Of overlapping scales in patterns and rings
From egg to caterpillar its, first life stages
And then to chrysalis where it rests and ages
To emerge one day so transformed
So utterly beautiful, so perfectly formed
To flutter by in colorful flight
And onto a flower, there alight
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2006
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
I startled you as you lay dreaming
With burnished scales and body gleaming
Upon an ochre sunny, sandy bank
Contrasting with your elongated flank
You rose with quick-silvery motion
Without sound or needless commotion
And spread wide your captivating hood
While in awe gazing, mesmerized I stood
You flicked your fork tongue at me testing
Simultaneously threatening and protesting
Swaying to your primeval ancient dance
As I stood rooted in admiring transfixed trance
You tasted once again my human essence
While I in turn took in your luminescence
And then with an imperceptible low hiss
You vanished, leaving me in humbled bliss
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2006
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
You cannot grow if you don’t try
Or change all that which you deny
Nor place blame for all your woes
On all the wrongs that you oppose
In feeling righteous without fault
Ensures the barricade of the vault
That holds the martyr forever bound
Desired freedom is never found
You cannot alter what you don’t accept
Remaining thus forever inept
Crying victim for way too long
Becomes yet another unheard song
Our destinies are ours to mold
In making choices strong and bold
Our actions so predict our journey
In making us winners of the tourney
Only truth to self will set you free
Only you can be what you should be
Only you can choose that which you need
And only you can stay fixed or proceed
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2012
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
Pious passion with pearl like luster
Panoply paint in deviant cluster
Projecting devout sacred morals
Wearing crowns of thorny laurels
Preaching forth with self righteous scorn
Scrawled on parchment fully worn
Those pagan heathens they perceive
Who don’t condone what they believe
Perplexed by such pathetic woes
Least the truth be so exposed
A patchwork of divine confusion
Unfounded values in perfusion
Peripheral motives, hidden lies
Unhallowed spirits in holy guise
Hypocrites with tarnished goals
Believing they’re the chosen souls
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2010
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
We are the dust upon butterflies’ wings
Musical notes on wind that sings
Grains of sand in on unspoiled beaches
Whispered words in poetic speeches
We are tiny fragments in endless space
Revolving mindless without trace
Softest velvet on fragrant petals
Silvery dewdrops that gently settles
We are powdery pollen on stamen tips
Which kiss the bees with enticing lips
Downy plumage of preening geese
Comforting feel of warmest fleece
We are the angelic touch of love’s caress
Giving freely without duress
Dancing in sunny rays of light
And dreaming into the darkest night
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2010
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
In a cold dark alley where deep shadows move
And an owl, large eyes stares and woos
When the silence is broken by a primal scream
That pierces the soul and shatters your dream
Once more a silence and then a thud
Something falling into the mud
Another scream that rips through the air
A sound so searing, so raw and so bare
A silver moon gliding between the clouds
Illuminating all that the darkness shrouds
A river of crimson on pebbled walk
A flower head lying without a stalk
A deathly white hand from the mud reaches
And glazed dead eyes there so beseeches
A pain terror expression upon this face
No longer a part of the human race
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2006
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
Pious passion with pearl like luster
Panoply paint in deviant cluster
Projecting devout sacred morals
Wearing crowns of thorny laurels
Preaching forth with self righteous scorn
Scrawled on parchment fully worn
Those pagan heathens they perceive
Who don’t condone what they believe
Perplexed by such pathetic woes
Least the truth be so exposed
A patchwork of divine confusion
Unfounded values in perfusion
Peripheral motives, hidden lies
Unhallowed spirits in holy guise
Hypocrites with tarnished goals
Believing they’re the chosen souls
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2012
|
Details |
Marilyn Clarke Poem
You see a man in ragged clothes
Digging through garbage for no one knows
A skulking youth with acne’d face
Shuffling by with little grace
You see a woman, old and frail
A blind girl struggling, reading braille
You see an old guy soft and flabby
Looking sad and somewhat shabby
You see a lady smart and trim
Stepping briskly, with upheld chin
Two teenage girls in low ride jeans
Full of laughter, full of beans
You see a lad with wooden leg
Stopping people, there to beg
An obese woman, waddling there
While people stop and point and stare
You see a young child skipping past
If only youthfulness would last
A toddler wobbling as he walks
Babbling excitedly as he talks
You see a person all alone
Another talking on a phone
A couple walking in embrace
And soft warm smiles upon their face
You see a drunk man stumble by
With red veined nose and bloodshot eye
A woman with deep furrowed brow
Stooping in dejected bow
You see anguished deeply etched
Someone waiting to be fetched
Another talking shrill and loud
Another standing tall and proud
Yet no one sees what beats within
What lies down deep beneath the skin
And no one has the right to judge
Or criticize or hold a grudge
Or laugh at someone else’s pain
Or live you life in shallow vain
As no one’s truly, fully whole
And every one has depth of soul
And what you see may not be real
But if you can touch and truly feel
And listen well to what they say
And share with them this special day
If you can hear them from the heart
And bring about a brand new start
Then this would be a better life
With much less pain and much less strife
Copyright © Marilyn Clarke | Year Posted 2006
|