When poetry goes bad… real bad.
OK.
So, I felt compelled by Joy Renee to post up a poem that rhymed. I am not talented in that department … maybe because I don’t usually care for the sing-songy rhythm that occurs in the spoken word of rhyming pieces. Anyway, here is a piece that I wrote about a scab on my knee…and what occurs when it is picked.
(not my knee)
Scab Crack on My Knee
A raw valley dams the flow
of life’s warm lava down below.
Dermatic plates twist and bend,
clotting juices within the rend.
On the edge grows a tree
not of wood but made of me.
Pulling, tugging, rooted grief
pluck the blight to find relief.
Wind blown cure, no cure at all
red pus blisters within its maul.
Foul stench rises touching sky
causing heaven’s creature’s cry.
Masochistic in desire
loving pain inside the fire
caused by tearing shale from shoal
leaving behind a gaping hole.
*****************
How awesome was that? 
Now if you came here look for something a little more serious, here is a piece that I wrote about a tree. You can google the title of the piece to see a picture of tree in question. I have not supplied it here in case you would like to read the piece to see what tree comes to mind before looking for the more factual representation.
Betula Pendula
lady of the woods
permit me to lay hands
against your ghost white skin
that i may comb
the texture and fabric of time
recorded between your gnarled joints
as a child i knew you fondly
your strength lifted me to the sky
and gently lulled me into games forgotten
somehow your color marked me
it came away from your being
and now flows as warm sap along my frame
at times, i place palm upon palm
thinking i can draw out your velvet unction
between fingers wrestling to remember
my lady, your visions harrow my dreams
you stand in negative relief against a september moon
dancing across a hilltop buoyed by its expelled breath
but dreams are for the dormant
and i would act now in your autumn existence
to harvest again those lost and simple joys
give me pause for i have become too hasty
too manic in my approach
i am a foolish man
i would judge the promise of the future
against a known and spent history
lady of the woods
allow me
to introduce myself
it’s way late, so i haven’t read the 2nd poem. but my intrigue forced me to come on over and read the scab poem.
wow. haha! both hilarious and gross. and oddly, you maintained a pretty good level of skill there.
thank you.. i think
I told you it was a bit tongue-in-cheek… and its a bit gross
(which i have to say is very surprising considering the fact that the whole poem was about picking a scab. ew.)
so it evoked an emotion… maybe of disgust… but an emotion none-the-less. That is the hope of us humble poets – to move people (not necessarily, always to disgust)
Awesome – with a large hint of Yuk!
i confess, for your skill of wordplay, to admiration, but confusion as to your motivation for it’s creation.
i was pretty close with the betula
<B
I used to play a lot of softball and would always have some nice scabs going on because sliding into base in shorts has a way of making those happen.
Sometimes picking was necessary to dig out the gravel or pull out other debris that would lodge in the scab during the game. I don’t particularly like scabs or rhyming poetry so I thought the two would go together quite nicely.
I loved this opening…
“lady of the woods
permit me to lay hands
against your ghost white skin…”
um. over here from L.L.’s and delighted to find silly fun and beauty all at once! I have two boys so bleeding scabs don’t scare me.
Enjoyed my visit.
I guess I’m weird, but I preferred the scab crack to the tree! It is so playfully satiric, like a four stanza Rape of the Lock or something.
This especially:
On the edge grows a tree
not of wood but made of me.