The earth is her playground beneath her feet.
Everyone around her sees that she’s sweet
And full of an innocence in her play.
She won’t stop until she’s seized the day!
Life is a fun game for her to beat.

She plays with the tadpoles that she finds neat.
For them, playing with her is such a treat.
They dream of being frogs so that someday
She’ll kiss them and make one her prince.

She traps them in a jar once filled with peat
And takes them to her home so they can meet
Her family where maybe they’ll stay.
But their dream isn’t her dream in any way.
Now it’s fools and liars who softly bleat,
“She’ll kiss them and make one her prince.”

the salty taste of death
plays games across my tongue
a meal long digested
forgotten past your throat
I need water and need it bad
fluid nectar falling from the sky
collecting in puddles
where tadpoles love to evolve

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
   Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

yellow cars
bumble bees
and flag poles

longboards
a chain-linked fence
and tadpoles

you are
the nacelle on an airplane
that is, a separate engine that has been attached for support
to keep me going

yellow cars
bumble bees
and flag poles

longboards
a chain-linked fence
and tadpoles

navigating me out of the forest fire
saving me from my death
should I thank you or resent you
should I attempt or resign

yellow cars
bumble bees
and flagpoles

longboards
a chain-linked fence
and tadpoles

time with you is time well spent
although leaving you stings worse than a bee
you support me no matter what

we cruise along wherever things take us
locked together with the same mindset
yet we’re growing in different directions

I would've liked another tomboy to catch tadpoles with,
but the boys hung out with other boys,
and the  girls, well, I guess they didn't
enjoy mucking about in a silty pond
with a smellyAussie Shepherd named Duke.

On a hot summer day, the murky water
was cooling, and the slinky little fellas
provided a challenging hunt. I imagined
they came up from a subterranean kingdom
with a Father and Mother Frog watching
from below. But I was quick, and
Duke would alert me to nearby swimmers.

Together we'd catch and release a dozen or so,
never meaning to harm. Except one day,
I decided to take some home in a glass
milk bottle. I hid it in the woods near my house
and forgot about it. Never again!
I considered them my friends, playmates.

I grew up straight, in case you're wondering.
So you see, girls can play dressup with paper dolls
AND build hideouts, go fishing,
climb trees, catch tadpoles, even read
Popular Mechanics cover to cover,
sketching self-driving cars that floate above
the road (on what, I wasn't sure).
But it was what I loved to do.

Explore, experiment, challenge, PLAY!
And my slimy friends were as good as any
to play with. They didn't disapprove
of my wild ways like many parents in
my uptight little town. But now that I
think of it, there was one boy who invited me
to climb trees with him.

He was lonely, living with his grandparents.
Before I headed back home one day,
he told me his Granny said "You could've picked
a prettier girl to bring home."
Like the song says "Que sera, sera." But it
did make me worry about my looks.
That was the last summer I chased tadpoles.

Health department signs litter the grass areas,
"Do not make contact with the water;
Swimming forbidden".
Less than twenty years ago I learnt to swim here
And fish too, once i even drowned!
Sometimes my friends and I would
Catch Eels then sell them
To the local Chinese restaurant.
I treasure those memories of my childhood.

This fresh water lake surrounded
By trees taller than buildings
My beautiful haven from the city, hidden
Between main roads and highways
that only the locals know.

Sitting on sandstone rocks
I see my reflection amongst the lily pads.
Beyond the depths an entanglement of
Roots, seaweed and *******.
Natural mandalas made by tadpoles
Ripple across the murky brown surface
Whilst a rather large water dragon
Sun bakes on the riverbank
And ducks glide by reminding me
Of the canoes we used to capsize
And I appreciate how simple life
Used to be.

ELEETE J MUIR

It made scallops on my shirt, dried like salt
in seashells —
the final appearance of our love.
I
could have mourned it
as if it were more than the possibility of life
disguised by a million tadpoles. A whole

day, it took him to get home
it may be even more
miles than my body fluids travel in a week.
His, still on my shirt. Hits my knees

(always the knees, have built oceans on them)

He thinks he left, but it was I
who cleaned sand castles from all my crevices

he thinks he left, he
the snail
I have
caught up in years of needing to be ******.

He thought he left, but white beaches
are still in my dresser —
it is what remains.
I am so tempted to say, "your *** outlived you"
but it would not be the
first time his **** did the work for him.

I was fond of frogspawn pond and the games that we played,with names I can hardly recall
walking tall,we as boys were so full of the joys as the light skipped on gaily through those games we played daily,
and the tadpoles played catch if you can.
As a man full of doubt and sad how we turned out
I go back now and then,remembering when it was simple to be,
so free without care,
and I often find there
some of my old boyhood friends,memory lends these gifts to me and once again I can be,
young, by the pond of which I was so fond where the tadpoles played catch if
you can.

My bed is a mass grave
My toilet is a mass grave
My kitchen sink is a mass grave
Stretched out in lines of chrysalis coke, choking the evanescent life that could have been. Straight into the empty Coca Cola can you go. A litany of atrocity in every bed, futon, desks, truck stop bathroom, camera lens, attempting to capture the genocide on film.
Alas, the lens is Covered with white, bioluminescent death.
Choking the unborn in the ****** drain.
Coffee mug refill, for but a single dime,
sweaty palms connected to strained veins on wrists,
connected to thrusting elbows.
Firing wrist rocket, V2, V1, buzz bomb.
Unsuspecting future citizens, blocks of thousands at a time.
Tadpoles, rotting in murky basement suits the world over.
The war is on.
Auschwitz, Dachau, Sachsenhausen.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
Swim for dear life

Arise! Arise you hopeful young tadpoles.
Come forth ye mighty messengers of joy.
To arms my children... To Arms!
This be no game. Don't let it fool you..
Can't you see our trickster ? I know I can.
He's always smiling, eagerly baring his teeth,
flashing them for our prying, unsavoring eyes.
And we, we my friends, are staring dully onward
Blind to his sarcasm, blinded by our own vision.
Oh you young hopefuls.
Why do you trouble us with such ancient questions ?
Why are you not of the learned ?
All you were destined to do was shine and light up the night's sky..
Like earthly Orion's celestial belt.
Why must you burrow now ?
Arise you tender hatch-lings... break your eggs.
Can't you see how fragile your shell shields actually are ?
I know I can.
To arms my children! join me in oblivion.
The fray is but a ruse.
Fear is a coward's excuse.
Be swift of hand and light of heart.
Your minds are but sandboxes.
Were they not once empty ?
Before mighty Morphius visited our backyards;
they were all empty, barren and oh so hopeful.
Oh you mighty brother of Delight... It was your cruelty that dragged her down.
Down into delirium.
where she now giggles, cries, screams and gasps in symposium.
you broke her, although she may have been broken earlier.

Arise you miserable tadpoles. The land is warm and welcoming.
Its soil, sands and snow all ache for your budding legs.
Say No to vegetative awareness.
Say No to boredom's persistence.
Come forth you mighty messengers of joy.
Slip on your armor, this is going to be a rough ride.
Our home awaits.
And now allow me to light your bottoms on fire.
And launch you into space.
I won't stand for no crier.
And when you face your brothers; those ugly friars.
Those frogs.
These acclaimed humans, your so called kin and countrymen;
Do not hide your hatred; bury not your malice, but your sympathy.
So when you see their beady empty eyes and power hungry lashes and whip like tongues;
don't fret and don't seek to befriend them.
For their sweat is poison and they reek of cyanide.
Don't seek safety by joining them.
Arise my children and step into my light.
The cakes are all warm and today's sun is still bright.

Spring in Kansas.
It doesn’t come in softly.
It roars in with the wind and rain beating against a steel roof, washing into the old soddies and stone,
Clearing out winter in one giant breath.
The change comes within a week,
From dry dead, brown, to startling green, an emerald landscape of winter wheat.  
The emerald isle has nothing on Kansas in the Spring.  
Then the color starts, red buds against glorious green fields
and thunderous skies, a painters dream uncaptured.
And forsythia, the first blooms, beautiful and stark.
Crocus, daffodil and dandelion crowning the ground with gold.
The trees, bare of leaves, burst forth with flowers in shades of white and pink and the magnolias burst forth, ready to fly off the tree.
Our mighty cotton wood, drooping with frills that will become light catching tufts in the early summer sun as the leaves murmur their constant song, piling like snow in the heated streets.
Thunder rolls as lightning strike turning day into night with hail filled clouds and twisters striking like Greek gods, angry and awesome.
Creeks flood and clear the way for tadpoles and crawdads in streams and pools.
Spring comes, the earth warms, we all wake and stretch and wait for the sunflowers to do the same, yearning to the summer sun.

Parsimony Antipathy or Prudent Hostility

                     Locked-up Cuspid Of the One Celled Organism

                     As the Augury tends to its Auspices oddities

                    One Weak Ordeal and your reward will be handsome

  

                     Ceteris paribus when Ockham’s blade gets dull

                     Get a loan from your Karma or come back as amoebae

                     Hearts won’t be practical until they’re unbreakable.

                     But if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

                    

              Sometime this week I’ll hang from the gallows

              Every drip of the tallow brings closer the end

              But I’ve got this imp secured in this bottle

              And you can have him for a price less than a penny



              Yeah, I’ve got a genie who’ll grant all your wishes

              Just pay for this bottle and your family gets fed

              But act fast, for soon I **** my last twitches

              By this time tomorrow I could very well be dead



                     Salivating tadpoles for Hegemony crickets

                     All imprisoned here with this repressionist peasant

                     By a singular stroke into Jove’s black booklet

                     Lucidly errant, who hasn’t been flippant?



                     Clever Arachne, my love, oh thou immodest spider

                     All I ever wanted, she picked a fine time to leave us

                     My days squandered eavesdropping Apocalypse riders

                     But if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.



              Sometime this week I’ll hang from the gallows

              Every drip of the tallow brings closer the end

              But I’ve got this imp secured in this bottle

              And you can have him for a price less than a penny



              Yeah, I’ve got a genie who’ll grant all your wishes

              Just pay for this bottle and your family gets fed

              But act fast, for soon I **** my last twitches

              By this time tomorrow I could very well be dead

I hear water singing,
the different musical symphonies of the rivers,
lakes and the vast ocean sea;

The sweet sorrowful song of the whale--the same song as when I first heard it,
off the edge of a boat in a yellow rain jacket when I was less than nine years old,

The children laughing as tadpoles swarm gaily around their tiny toes--the cream colored foam swallows their legs up to their knees in the orange midday sun,

The chirping of a dolphin, kissing the deep blue waves each time it leaps,

The seahorses galloping and neighing in the salt sea and the catfish purring and licking their paws in the lakes of Wisconsin and Minnesota,

The seagulls calling to the fish to leap out of the water to become breakfast,

The sobbing of the naked woman in her bathtub at home, the suds up to her pink neck--toes turning to raisins,

The deep bellowing of a cruise ship, filled with all of the people laughing inside its belly,

The ocean whispering against the sand as the moon is gazing into the largest mirror in the universe,

The sun singing loudly in the morning time, peeking above the horizon and pulling back the curtains of the night, greeting all of her lovely friends; bold, sweet, and strange.

Mad as a box of frogs they say.
Strange expression, so I say.
Women kiss frogs who turn into princes.
Princesses in fairy tales are always beautiful, princes handsome.
This princess only meets toads and all of them *****.
On a more serious matter, frogs come from tadpoles in springtime ponds.
So how is it that,witches turn princely chaps into ugly toads.
Must be using a wobbly wand.
So,what becomes of tadpoles, carnivorous creatures stuck in bubbles filled with slime.
All spawn of royalty?
Awaiting princesses?
Prepped by witches perhaps.
Crone stirring frogspawn in a ******* floppy hat.
Question is,
Are princes made for lovely ladies created by the hag ?
Tell me do I really need to kiss a frog?
Kissed one or two.
To no avail.
****** witches.
****** frogs!
(C) LIVVI

Bit of silliness








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I found a pool, small
Of tepid waters, shallow
Left imprinted by the things
That long since grew big, climbed and,
Sought the ocean

I know the pool, I grew tall in it,
Know it for what it was, once
It seemed deep as the seas, wide as the horizon
Brimmed with life a thousand-led
By all the verdure of many beasts

Each began as tadpoles, swam from their sacs and
Knew magnitude, kept to the shallows
Looked on at the lurching fish with,
Fear. Met a generation in those
Huddled beside them, scared.

Growing, their arms and legs,
Uniform in formlessness, ill-defined but
Excited. Each learned to swim and laughed at
Each other. Spiralling, gangling, twisting games
Were played on shallow borders.

Our bellies touched the silt, our eyes turned out
And we flicked our feet to find the open air, and
It wasn't so scary, terrible not, look at me! Look
At me! I can go see those dark holes, hiding
Nothing, I'm sure. Let's go.

As we lost ourselves in the growing dark, we
Lost sight of the other tadpoles, and
Grew faces, eyes, mouths, antennae, or
Unsure, we grew and each became streamline, in
a thousand different ways, we swam to the centre of the pool.

And met each other, as if for the first time, but
Saw no similarity, saw only our differences, we
Smiled and looked about, and each, in our own way,
Discovered the light. We did not stop growing, did not think to,
Knew no fear, saw no dark corners, scalps touched the open air.

And we went, each found the same certainty at the same time.
We must leave, a fish, a salamander, a boatman, a snake.
Shed the oily waters and explored the fresh air. Some,
Found they could not breathe, some found themselves prey to
Unknown evils. None stayed, none I knew.

I am back now, face weathered by winds I knew not were
Out there, hands pricked by something called thorns, the
Waters so small, tepid, stagnant, shallow from all the
Absence, those things that now walk, or lie, or fly, I
Know not why I came back, or why I look now into the puddle

I see only frogs. I hear only croaks. Old things living in a drying world.
Leathery, cold blooded, oily,
Speaking only of the times when they were tadpoles,
Thinking only of the time when they were new. I
walk away, and shed the thoughts that link my path to them.

I face the wind, I face the thorns. I feel my neck and
Hold closed my gills with thumb and forefinger
Forgetting...

Croak.

land of no responsibility
except to give in to that burning urge
that prickles up the back of your neck on waking
to be off out running under sun
barefoot as soon as out of sight
adventures wait and time belongs to you
you fish for sticklebacks in a field of golden corn
where farmers wave in anger at the trail to the pond
and take home tadpoles in glass jars on string
breathless at the sight of legs emerging
pick bluebells in the wood for mother
but then arrange them in old tins
in tumbledown cottage the gangs den
scrumping crab apples in overgrown gardens  
never getting that stomach ache all Adults warned of
roaming hedgerows looking for hedgehogs
hoping for signs of any living thing
all long fled at the collective noise you make
catching butterflies to look at their wings
putting crysillis in greaseproof papered jars
to watch them emerge for flight on glistening wings
when you return them to the wild
lifting up old drain pipes to look for slugs to race
not forgetting to put them back at races end so they dont shrivel
basking in hot sun after watching trails of catapillars
whose prickles mother later tweezers out
amidst a small flood of tears because they flame red
having a bath with bubbles then tucking up in bed
drowzy but anticipating  tomorrow is waiting

“Mysterious Waters of the Naked and Nervous”

She begins her life
along with nine-thousand seven hundred fourteen siblings
in the shallowest part of the pond,
just four days after being laid as a jelly egg
attached to a fern leaf bent over humid water.

On day seven she sallies to neighboring weeds
using a very circular route
quietly clings to ****, watches with terror
as brothers and sisters are  attacked
by sharp beaked birds
swooping down to chew helpless tadpoles,
devouring membranes that cover their gills and necks.  

One of few tadpoles to survive to day ten.
officially becomes a tiny pitch black pollywog
with continuously wiggling tail and  small round mouth
of ***** jaws that scrapes across tiny plants,
searching for something to eat.

She greedily swallows microscopic animals
found inside pond bottom ooze
and slime which clings to pond’s surface.

Devouring a particularly tasty ooze meal,
she is horrified to witness
tadpole brothers and sisters  eating each other,
siblings extending their bellies
by swallowing extended family.
            
Mostly tail with fine stippling of gold,
within  twenty-four hours she breathes
from two gills at each side of her throat
as hind legs suddenly sprout
rounded buds that soon turn into toes  
amazing her how fast she can propel  
away from murderous dive bombing birds of color.

She first demonstrates courage  
by a successful attack of  black fish that menaces her for hours.,
******* on its fish fins until they are ragged,
not in anger or self-defense  
more for tasty algae trapped within them.

But it does feel good to be able to destroy instead of being destroyed.

I dispelled arduous watches tick on laborious appareled macrocosms scatter spitting patter, teeming paved labyrinths searching for something to own orbiting the bench I sit on, envisaging celestial bodies slinging transonic ripples. Ether colliding into clouds masking infinite galaxies from a suffering and crawling universe destined for a hole in the wall, where the rats live; nibble, scratch, deconstruct, and reconstruct, cannibalize, ****, and die.
         Does silence exist amongst the deucedly hot and dense state that incrementally dilutes vociferous dissonance illuming dynamic hurricanes, merciful gases, and asteroidal moats guarding engraved anthropomorphic landscapes?
Probably not; fauna whisper, tear down, and settle, birth exigent infants and zealous appraisals, ***** towers and castles; consciousness capitulates, inundates prisons, cemeteries, and landfills. Silence, in precipitous day dreaming, auspiciously reverberating webs espying arpeggios tomb the suburbs as one navigates in and out of trepidation to avoid being caught like a gnat, a quiet ******* bug with no cigarettes to burn.
The impact flung me from the bench in the commons toward dusk disguising 16 acres with streetlights and homeless asking for squares on the roads to spurs and oaks, scattered acorns crepitating under my soles. Each  compressing sound pulling like gravity, transporting down roads with bouncing winds, subtle aglow, guides from defiant contours of Gods in the clouds, dandelions erupting side walks like tectonic plates seismically tear apart earth, the fog’s mist like ships floating into suns swimming like tadpoles; air undulates as I wave my hands against the wind, molding the space as clay.
This city is mine, I tumultuously grow with it, and I mercurially oscillate with it as a memory inevitably plays. The past as a dream, is mine. The abstract present is mine, and the infinite future is not, yet they are given away for possession.
Inept graffiti cartographically stain bricks providing a simpler search for portals made perfect for laying like a crescent moon near their opening edge, watching dawn lift dust and my eyelids, glaring off windows building and kissing the satellite towers on roofs, waking the mountains in the horizon, painting the sky, one could give a **** about the past, present, and future, the beginning is just as imminent as venturing any further.
Embryonic sun rays mixing fluids and this coffee I nabbed to wake the day, having it enlighten the conversations one has with oneself; consisting of bellicose thoughts filtered, taboos accompanying bleating people, ubiquitous t-shirts, satirical newspapers, and indecorous magazines perpetually feeding me preliminarily eldritch reconnaissance as they dress into strangers.
It could be time for another cup of coffee and cigarette? Or am I just floating off into enigma over the road becoming a sea?
Gypsies contort into seagulls, shingles moving like tsunamis smashing down on metropolitan brick cities, Atlantis generation XYZ resting in an underwater valley, mountains sew gardens on the ocean’s bottom, signs buried, and I’m simply lifting back off into space.
Complaints will suffocate; I’ll be out of town, however, I will miss those whom drowned.
Good riddance.
“Hello,” a soft resonation shaking the atmosphere.
Resuscitation; back to reality…
“Hello”, the voice repeated, “Are you going to be alright?”
“Pardon, what happened?” I slurred.
“You just fell several stories and your head is missing. This is astonishing how you can hear me, how I can hear you, are you in any pain?”
“Um, I apologize, but I’m not really certain of what you are saying. My head is missing?”
“Yup, it detached from your atlas, when you hit the asphalt, what is the last thing you remember?”
“Having my head…well sort of, I remember staring at people on a bench in the commons it was kind of turning my stomach, making my head feel heavy, so I got up and walked. Explains the headaches and visuals, Where am I?”
“You’re in my basement. I could hear your voice when I found you, even with your head, well, skull missing.”
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”
“I would have called an ambulance, but you told me not too, you wanted me to hear you, you kept insisting I hear your stories, so, I listened to your stories as I basically dragged you here. You would go in and out, talking then silent the next, and now you seem like you’re in at this moment; without a skull, your heads there.”
“Well…I can’t see you… or the basement… and I am not in any pain… How long has this been going on, why did you listen to my stories, and what did I say?”
“You know what you said.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the only one who listened.”

a bluejay recently passed away
outside on my front lawn
i tried to help him best I could
but now he is long gone

i have a pool of tadpoles
sitting right out back
the tiny little froglets
making me an insomniac

a new cat showed up last week
with a short shiny black coat
along with his appearance
my mother left a note

"please do not feed him, darling
for he is but a stray
and you've taken in three new cats
already yesterday!"

Birds came and pecked through the silver top,
popping their beaks in
for a dribble of milk,
it was cold then,
back in the old days
not so anymore.

And the slow light of the glow worm that could turn a bird in mid flight would send sparse light, but enough light as if enough light was a feast.

The snowmen in the garden that stood under the clothes line looked perfect with two buttons sewed into their eyes until the thaw came and they melted like our hearts did when they went away and the days grew even longer after that.

The frogspawn burst into tadpoles became black comma's in the pond and the herons flew like spitfire aircraft,
how daft we laughed and gaily played as if the season would last forever and tomorrow would never come.

Mr's Brown is Bobby coming out to play today?

Then Bobby went away,
taken by leukemia that crept in silently and took him quietly and still we squandered the fading sunlight.

On the dullest of days when the bagpiper plays and a darkness comes into my heart,
I stand there, out on the foreshore, waiting for emptiness
and wanting no more.

Beaten-in-dirt-roads led us to
a foggy marsh you called the place to be.
Our heads kept still as we watched
eggs hatch beneath the algae.
Our bodies swaying like the limbs
of a willow we almost forgot about.

Preoccupied with catching tadpoles,
we never noticed temptation
creeping up behind tomorrow.
Aggravated, he whispered:
I'm waiting.

White crane fishing trackside for
Vestiges of nourishment from
Newark muck and Secaucus slush:
            Be aware;
Three-eyed tadpoles live in these waters,
Breeding alongside rotting corpses--
Mob jobs gone wrong and various
Plastic garbage.

Treading on toothpicks
thinking about tomorrow
time teases
tired tadpoles
trying to transform
trains transporting
transparent  travellers
to tall tin trees

typed at Teatime
ty Tismee T
Tetit?
Time: To-o-to TM