http://www.batbox.org/poetry For my mother, who used to read me "The Bat Poet" by Randall Jarrell Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:57:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Leather Wing Bat Re-vamped lyrics by Ariane Simard "I" said the little leatherwing bat "I'll tell to you the reason that The reason that I fly by night Because I lost my heart's delight" Refrain: Howdy-dowdy, diddle-um-day Howdy-dowdy, diddle-um-day Howdy-dowdy, diddle-um-day Hi lee-lee, little-I little-o "I" said the cockerel sitting on a fence "Once I loved a handsome wench She got saucy and ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=48 Bats In a freezing attic somewhere in Prague a hungry songwriter invents Sincerity, but alas, too early. A decade later, a popular singer, struck by the intimacy a microphone fakes, invents a way of sobbing in time to the music -- earnest little hearts are wrecked from San José to Surbiton. The ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=47 Our wings heal quickly - else how could we climb every night into your guarded sweetness: cloud-white windows of the watery heart? Eben J. Gering http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=46 Check out On A Bat's Wing for a nice collection of Bat Poetry http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=44 Dreams And dreams like bats (which with small cries go chasing gnats and long-legged flies) wing through the darkness of the breast until with day they take their rest, hanging head downwards, vague, aloof, like some soft fungus on a roof. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=43 The Bat Poem Bats are big bats are small have a good time with them all Bats may be scary OH MY, but they will never make you die No one knows when they came about, but they use echolocation to find their route. Tonight they'll eat 6000 mosquitoes. They must be very hungry! Right? One day all the bats will be ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=42 THE INDIGESTION OF THE VAMPIRE Look at this red pear Hanging from a good family Where the butcher hung the rag on the tree. The bat's bloated again, Hooked on his dark nimbus Getting over it. Here is the cure of pity Upside down. Elsewhere the laundry Is buried, The deer tracks left by his teeth Look for the cross-roads, The veins that ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=41 Bat I walk towards our house after dusk has covered the yard and through the open windows I hear a sharp yelp from our daughter. I look up to the stairwell window where I see the silhouette of a bat flashing across the walls. Inside the house, the sound of your laughter echoes behind the living room door as you try ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=40 Bats are cute and never scary Bats are very sanitary Bats in dismal caves keep cozy Bats remind us of Lugosi Bats have webby wings that fold up Bats from ceilings hang down rolled up Bats when flying undismayed are Bats are careful Bats use radar Bats at night time at their best are Bats by Batman unimpressed are. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=39 Bats Bats have shiny leather wings Bats do many clever things Bats dose upside-down by day Bats come out at night to play Bats cavort in soaring cliques sounding ultrasonic shrieks Acrobatic in the sky Bats catch every bug they spy http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=38 The poem uses the first letters of the term echolocation. Every evening Caves come alive and Hunters alight On New Mexican deserts. Lone riders of the night skies are Off to nocturnal feasts. Caverns spew their winged lava Across the darkening deserts. Teeming leathery warriors In flight over arid seas. Onward legions of the twilight Night-borne pilots of sandy, moonlit shores. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=37 Ravishing Spirits, Soaring through the Night. Mysterious Creatures, Caught in Mid-Air Flight. Misinterpreted Beasts, What a Beautiful Sight. Fearsome Killers, Not in the Slight. Fascinating Beings, Never Seen in the Light. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=36 I am a bat, no, not a cat, I fly during the night, Because i don't like the light, I eat lots of fruit, And wear a fur suit, I hang upside-down, And I don't wear a frown, Because being a bat, Is surely all that http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=35 Ode to Bats (Cabo San Lucas, BCS, Mexico) Twilight. Bats erratic insect harvest. Beautiful evening. Death. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=34 Bat Wing-ed creature of the night sleeps by day, at dusk takes flight. Though black and fanged it's very light this creature could never bring forth fright. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=33 DEAF AS A BAT Riding the fly flecked flours of a dusty sky, Into dusk's rusty brisket, I have a universe Slipping under me in liquification & fractions; I know the secret address of the inventor of Tetrapaks & how his oaks are ideal for hanging my body from. have a shotgun loaded with rice ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=32 Bats Flight of bats on the rime of night echo fragile cries over the still black mirror. They skim, dip, tip stars glimmer quicksilver grace to riffle water. Swift to kill caddis nymph lacewing and mosquito in flight; tilt, soar, glance and glide insectivores shimmer in the skyloom. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=31 A Batty Poem A little black bat flew into the room, I heard a loud sound, and it was a ZOOM! Her mother was a mammal who nursed her young, They hang upside down by their feet not their tongue. Nocturnal time they sleep all day, Because they are sleeping with no ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=30 BATS Midnight marauders Flit and shudder Because they know They're Misunderstood Rodents of the air. Givers of life And patient evolution You'll never be trusted Surrounded by black cats, Witches And such. -All that dark stigmata. Tonight, by Devil's Tower, The blue dusky sky Will be peppered again With hundreds of agitated Ebony bowties. Ready for night-time Formals And Witching Hour Tea Parties. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=29 A bouncing sound from echoes around in a world of acoustic cues Where visual clues are important and rare to seek the truth out there http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=28 Bats ! Bats go flying in the night, Some give people a lot of fright, Most people think they're very scary, But most of them are just cute and hairy! http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=27 from "A Door in the Hive" IN TONGA the sacred bats hang in their chosen grove, sinister old dustbags, ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=26 A Bat Poem by Alex I'm a bat, I do not see like a rat. Bats are nocternal but that's just a kernel. That bat is not very fat. This is his diet: (he doesn't exactly eye-it) Mosquitoes but not Cheetoes! Bugs are rough but bats are TOUGH! The End I'm a bat and that's that by Caryn I'm a bat and ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=25 Childhood by John Clare 1793-1864 One summer eves with wild delight We bawled the bat to y Who in the'I Spy' dusky light Shreiked loud and flickered by And up we tossed our huttle cocks and tried to hit the moon and wondered bats would flye so long and they come down so soon Traditional Verse from Cornwall Airy mouse, ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=24 Waiting Afield at Dusk by Robert Frost, 1920 WHAT things for dream there are when spectre-like, Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled, I enter alone upon the stubble field, From which the laborers' voices late have died, And in the antiphony of afterglow And rising full moon, sit me down ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=23 It happens on the Common in Boston: A bat fallen out of its tree Mid-Afternoon. A sick bat? I stooped Thinking I'd lift it again to tree-bark safety. It reared up on its elbows and snarled at me, A raving hyena, the size of a sparrow, Its whole face peeled in a snarl, fangs tiny. I tried ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=22 From a very old Peter, Paul and Mary album: "Hi!" said the little leatherwinged bat, "I'll tell you the reason that-- the reason that I fly by night is that I've lost my heart's delight." ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=21 I am a bat I do not do what I should I cut the strings that bound my wings and made me shuffle about blindly with my teeth. I found an open window and launched myself for flight I clapped my wings two unnoticed strings caught me back sharply slap into a wall. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=20 Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=19 By day, the bat is cousin to the mouse He likes the attic of an aging house His fingers make a hat about his head His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead He loops in crazy figures half the night Among the trees which face the corner light But when he brushes up ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=18 At the bottom of a stairwell In a pile of screeching lint, We found our newborn batling Orphaned...hungry...spent. He was crying for his mama Who'd long since flown away And left her babe to die there. On this...his saddest day. His body? Cold and hairless. His face? Only his mother could kiss, And fortunately for him this night, I would become ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=17 Whales have calves, Cats have kittens, Bears have cubs, Bats have bittens, Swans have cygnets, Seals have puppies, But guppies just have little guppies. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=16 Mind in its purest play is like some bat That beats about in caverns all alone, Contriving by a kind of senseless wit Not to conclude against a wall of stone. It has no need to falter or explore; Darkly it knows what obstacles are there, And so may weave and flitter, dip and soar In perfect ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=15 I think that I shall never see A think so lovely as a bat. I like to have them land on me. Now, what do you think of that? I had a young brown bat named gus. Over food, he'd make a fuss. It really made you want to cuss. But such was the temperament of Gus. One ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=14 The sun had set when they began their flight, Within a darkened cave they'd grown more bold. A cloud of bats erupts into the night, Their leath'ry wings now lick the air so cold. Dispersing now, they go ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=13 CHAPTER I Down the Rabbit-Hole Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!' (Dinah was the cat.) `I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=12 -for the Bats: Drink the blood: for the grieving -till heads hit stone. Fly over the columns straight in a row defeat us to enrich us Save the worm from Mother Earth. color our sky.....blind- to save our glory. and Take us with you:the earth's too still all ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=11 A Bat Is Born A bat is born Naked and blind and pale His mother makes a pocket of her tail And catches him. He clings to her long fur By his thumbs and toes and teeth. And then the mother dances through the night Doubling and looping, Soaring, somersaulting- Her baby hangs on underneath. All night, in happiness, She hunts and flies. Her ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=10 161 The bat is dun with wrinkled wings Like fallow article, And not a song pervades his lips, Or none perceptible. His small umbrella, quaintly halved, Describing in the air An arc alike inscrutable, - Elate philosopher! Deputed from what firmament Of what astute abode, Empowered with what malevolence Auspiciously withheld. To his adroit Creator Ascribe no less the praise; Beneficent, believe me, His eccentricities. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=9 From caves and hollows , they begin to unfold. They are the first buds of spring. As these tiny bulbs of fur free themselves of the last crystals of ice, the emergence begins. Want for energy, the awakening triggers the revival of the heart, full veins warm the skin, and the old motives resurface upon the brain. The eyes ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=8 The following appeared in the April 15, 1996 issue of The New Yorker magazine: The Fruit Bat Because the air has darkened like bruised fruit, you creep down the bare branch where you slept all light long, gathered into yourself like a fig. Little mandarin woman fleeing under the stars on bound feet, when your wings spring open even ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=7 Enter Caliban, upstage. Cal: This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou takest from me. All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=6 The earthen womb Exudes from its dead boredom. Black bat airs Wrap me, raggy shawls, Cold homicides. They weld to me like plums. http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=5 One of the few poems to ever get into 'Nature' and is by J. D. Pye. It's actually about moth ears and bat echolocation In days of old and insects bold (Before bats were invented), No sonar cries disturbed the skies- Moths flew uninstrumented. The Eocene brought mammals mean And bats began to sing; Their food they found ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=4 From Mariana : After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "My life is ... http://www.batbox.org/poetry/?p=3