genericpoetryblog - Tumblr blog

[genericpoetryblog]

oh! so it isn't MEANT to be a specific shifter, that's actually the thesis of this poem!

I like things to have multiple interpretations and meanings to various people, and the concept of shapeshifting has a lot of unexplored emotion to it whether you prefer to play in the space of just shifters as literally werewolves or as an extended metaphor of becoming and unbecoming, things you're happy to turn into but sad you've left behind. That even if one is shifting forms on purpose, there's always something left behind when you're chasing the high of becoming the next thing.

If we go with werewolves, the elation of drawing deep from the well of strength, moonlight and frenzy may be dampened in moments where one realizes what they cannot feel through the armor of fur and claw. Gaining some senses but losing others etc etc.

so tldr, to any inquiry on 'is the poem about [thing]?' the answer's always 'if you'd like it to be, yes!'

Shifter

it is easy to envy the shifter who runs with canid grace and flies on borrowed bones who hears metaphor in whalesong and drinks deep ultraviolet radiance

but what of the loss of such gifts with every shift?

we, landbound, tasting flight with our eyes forever cast skyward mourn every pang of loss upon waking from that dream of wing and loft and break

so how must the shifter feel?

with a thousand phantom limbs a hundred phantom senses mourning loss of seal language when in a form without ears doleful glare at sweet berries while a carnivoran tongue cannot taste its kiss hot tea left un-drunk in a garden where eyes no longer reach the full spectrum

a price must be made for each gift purchased and I know not whether I could stand the strain of a life in such elated grief

[genericpoetryblog]

Mycelium Prince - V1

Were you to pass him by,

Between crumbling paint on asphalt,

You would not stay a glance,  

At crown of red and cloak of white.

And yet his nod and smile,

Crow footed, dimpled, familiar,

Beckons you to rest,

‘pon mossed earth and canopied light. 

Do not accept his hand,

Slender limbs with deceiving grip,

Will yank you, stumbling past,

The ring of gently, sporing necrosis.

Soon you will see his crown,

A speckled pyrope, fly agaric,

Bloom straight from his scalp

Gills of fragile, breathing fungus.

Pale dust molts off his robes,

Living pollen that seeks your breath,

Fills your lungs with spores,

As you wobble your final steps.

You’ll sense his roaming gaze,

Not from eyes of matte, pitch jet

His view’s within your mind,

Probing ophiocordyceps.

With war, love, or power,

Your soul begs to make him proud,

Despite your frozen limbs

Lying curled in lichened ground.

He’ll not grasp your wishes,

Promised tributes you yearn to lay out,

He’s already had his offering,  

For ‘neath mycelium, corpses are found.

[genericpoetryblog]

Whalefall (Final Edit)

To sink a behemoth, Displacing gallons of incomprehensible measurement, Feeding villages to civilizations on blubber and marrow.

To bequeath a legacy, Of decade filled descendants and ecosystem genesis, Growing generations uncountable of hagfish and plankton.

To birth a lineage, Evolutionary fractals of kinetic biodiversification, Footprinting beyond fossil record where blue bleeds abyssal.

To submerge an ascension, Where rising demiurge grasps reflection in fraying corpse-fat, Haloed by bacterial mats and winged in polychaeta.

To devour an apotheosis, Renamed microscopic and leviathan in one airless gasp, Gorged bountiful of divinity dispersed from bone and flesh.

To conclude a promise, Life renewed in matching exchange of a single lived, Archimedean overflow flushing Lethe’s tidal shallows in rebirth

[genericpoetryblog]

Shifter

it is easy to envy the shifter who runs with canid grace and flies on borrowed bones who hears metaphor in whalesong and drinks deep ultraviolet radiance

but what of the loss of such gifts with every shift?

we, landbound, tasting flight with our eyes forever cast skyward mourn every pang of loss upon waking from that dream of wing and loft and break

so how must the shifter feel?

with a thousand phantom limbs a hundred phantom senses mourning loss of seal language when in a form without ears doleful glare at sweet berries while a carnivoran tongue cannot taste its kiss hot tea left un-drunk in a garden where eyes no longer reach the full spectrum

a price must be made for each gift purchased and I know not whether I could stand the strain of a life in such elated grief

[genericpoetryblog]

Small(er) Gods

We sit to praise our pantheon,        Hands clasped in thread and steel. For powers deftly laid upon,        The needle, hook or wheel.

Benevolent though some may be,        More love to steer astray. They’ll gift your pins to gravity,        Or keep fused threads at bay.

Some take their tithe in first cloth cut,       The smoothest, cleanest snip. Yet others drink the pin-prick blood,       From scars on fingertips.

The brave may seek their council still,       For pins lost or purls dropped. They’ll not shy from uneven quilts,       Or loops that come unlocked.

Though guidance they will offer plain,       With payment clear as glass, Be wary of the terms explained,       Lest tangled knots stay fast.

But still their songs are heard and felt,        In heartbeats punched and sewn. Machine beat drowning prayers that tell,        You’ll not create, alone.

[genericpoetryblog]

Taproot

While I appreciate you, who wants to be rose grown from concrete, willow stood alone on weeping ledge, nightshade left on graves, in veins,

I still yearn for the pulsing comfort of acacia networks of letter’d bitterness, mycelium net in impulse and spore, mangrove floats of home and hearth,

You do not deride my ache for community, But I hope one day you accept my shelter, Tender shoots shielded and fed, With my definition of love

[genericpoetryblog]

Scrimshaw

sometimes happiness is carved from blood and bone, scrimshaw gouges mark decisions that tell us yes,

today I deserve the love,

the love they tried to drain from me, tried to gnaw me dry of marrow,

and failed,

only leaving toothmark’d scars, leaving me filled with spite and life.

[genericpoetryblog]

To a friend I never met

I know this might seem like a place of death And maybe it’s true Shelves lined with remnants of a time Not just forgotten, but before memory There is sadness here too Every fossil is a miracle and a tragedy in one But how can this place hold only sadness when you are here with me?

Your form is scattered Tumbled by the tides of the earth I will find its parts

Your hands are bare Stripped of strength and power I will hold them gently

Your bones are brittle Broken by unthinkable age I will make them whole

Your story is hidden Stifled by rock and clay I will make it seen

I could not be there To love you in your time I will love you in mine

[genericpoetryblog]

Pinpath

An ode to my sewing needle

How many miles does she skip?    Bifrost tail trailing neatly,    Behind an un-seeing eye,    Blind to what she weaves,    But sure in her punctured path

Could she measure her own trek?    More traveled than most,    Making highway hours fly,    Mending as she creates,    Mundane to all but myself

Does she know of my owed love?    Eons of ancestral pulled fibre,    Echoed humanity in napped ivory,    Ebbing steel between fingertips,    Ends pulled stitch-tight,

Sealed with a knotted kiss.

[genericpoetryblog]

Mosquito

She in her lynch-pin grace Her belly swollen with blood and pain Her place in the chain, in our web Weighs beyond what she leaves

Have we asked her?

If she asked for toxins and illness If she took the mantle of harbinger With purpose in her souls And hate in her legacy

She won’t give you an answer Only leaves itching reminders In pitched whines and iron stains Oblivious to her own martyrdom

[genericpoetryblog]

At the River Clarion, Mary Oliver

[genericpoetryblog]

how am i meant to show my love when i peel an orange but need a shovel to give you a slice

[genericpoetryblog]

[genericpoetryblog]

new poem called "OTZI AWAKE". it's right here so you don't have to subscribe to my substack but i'd love it if you did

[genericpoetryblog]

Dendrogaster (a crustacean that parasitizes starfish)

[genericpoetryblog]

Strange Bird

[genericpoetryblog]

something something to be loved is to be changed

Parallels in domesticity and being cared by and for one another

I got into a tiktok loop about horseshoe maintenance and sheep shearing ok

The specialized tools we make just for the comfort of those we love

Thrive dummes federvieh or whatevrr