Category: poetry

Flying Crabs

by Thadd Presley

When my mother took her children to the beach
we had the most fun while flying kites high out of reach.
So high and fast they’d fly, soaring above the water
that when  they came down, it was really no bother

For my oldest brother would put them back in the air again.
It was he who discovered the night-time sandy friends.
At dusk the little crabs would come out  in droves.
We caught a bucket full  and took them home

My mother let us keep some because they were small
but did she know what we were planning? no not at all.
The morning came and we took straight to our kites,
latched onto the string, and then put them in flight

The kite hoisted them high into the sky and with stalky eyes
they viewed the world , as the only crabs to ever fly.
Finally they would gather the courage and drop back to the sea
When my mother caught, she broke our kites, and grounded us for two weeks

“The Nights I Write”

by Thadd Presley

Sitting near the window, under the moon, in the light I write
Harvesting thoughts that form from dreams during the nights, I write

It has been a pleasure to write about their lives, an undertaking of soul
As it happens, their fictitious life’s design illuminates the nights I write

Dark characters die too soon only to be born alive again to sin
and hide in the shadows or the dens to survive the nights I write

The village where I create my men and the wives they so love
comes ever so close to disaster within the darkness on the nights I write

The men cry, “Thadd, why dost thou do ill and evil to us men.”
I have learned they deplore their days and despise the nights I write.