The tortoise is friends with the snail: those with shells keep their shells close together.
Related quotes
To whom do you offer your shells for sale? To people who come from Saint Michel (where shells abound).
A Duet
'FLOWERS nodding gaily, scent in air,
Flowers posied, flowers for the hair,
Sleepy flowers, flowers bold to stare----'
'O pick me some!'
'Shells with lip, or tooth, or bleeding gum,
Tell-tale shells, and shells that whisper Come,
Shells that stammer, blush, and yet are dumb----'
'O let me hear.'
'Eyes so black they draw one trembling near,
Brown eyes, caverns flooded with a tear,
Cloudless eyes, blue eyes so windy clear----'
'O look at me!'
'Kisses sadly blown across the sea,
Darkling kisses, kisses fair and free,
Bob-a-cherry kisses 'neath a tree----'
'O give me one!'
Thus sand a king and queen in Babylon.
poem by Thomas Sturge Moore
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A Parable
BETWEEN the sandhills and the sea
A narrow strip of silver sand,
Whereon a little maid doth stand,
Who picks up shells continually
Between the sandhills and the sea.
Far as her wondering eyes can reach
A Vastness, heaving grey in grey
To the frayed edges where the day
Furls his red standard on the breach,
Between the skyline and the beach.
The waters of the flowing tide
Cast up the seapink shells and weed;
She toys with shells, and doth not heed
The ocean, which on every side
Is closing round her vast and wide.
It creeps her way as if in play,
Pink shells at her pink feet to cast;
But now the wild waves hold her fast,
And bear her off and melt away
A Vastness heaving gray in gray.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Spineless
I won't see my dear friends as much
Male friends especially, I'll no longer be in touch
I'll change my hobbies to match yours
I'll stop reading my favorite books
I won't spend all this selfish time alone
I'll cater to you and hang on your every word
I'll be subservient and spineless
I'll lick your boots as empty shells
I'll be opinion less and silent
I'll be the prettiest appendage to ever lose herself
I'll re-define self-sacrifice
Live my life as apologetic compromise
I'll know you need if I rock the boat
I'll be subservient and spineless
I'll lick your boots as empty shells
I'll be opinion less and silent
I'll be the prettiest appendage to ever lose herself
I feel this, truly proclaimed will help the curbing of this tendency
I'll be low maintenance and agreeable
I will not talk about my dreams so much
I'll listen to you for hours, won't need anything
I'll be subservient and spineless
I'll lick your boots as empty shells
I'll be opinion less and silent
I'll be the prettiest appendage to ever lose herself
I'll be subservient and spineless
I'll lick your boots as empty shells
I'll be opinion less and silent
I'll be the prettiest appendage to ever lose herself
I feel this, truly proclaimed will help the curbing of this tendency
I know this sharing of shame will ensure that I won't forget myself so easily
song performed by by Alanis Morissette
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Duplicitous in Needs
Adorning shells.
Teased with temptations,
To physically update...
What is worn on their backs,
To impress and attract...
Those with eyes on fashion.
Fads and quick existences.
Trained to accept,
Themselves as domesticated.
Duplicitous in needs...
Adorning shells this human species.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Sea-Shell Shope
She sells those sea shells
Along the sea shore
Cheaper than the sea shells
At the sea-shell store.
It's a shop-keeping nation
In a shop-keeping world.
Shopkeeper, Shopkeeper
What will you do
When all of your neighbors
Are shopkeepers too?
poem by Adeline Foster
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9 -11
New York
Central Park
They met
Life set
He banker
she teacher
wedding bells
sandy shells
one September
world remember
9 11
he heaven
she cries
memories survives
bells shells
Remember September
poem by Tashi Dorji
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The Songs of the Lathes
The fans and the beltings they roar round me.
The power is shaking the floor round me
Till the lathes pick up their duty and the midnight-shift takes over.
It is good for me to be here!
Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a man that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders! Feeds the guns!
The cranes and the carriers they boom over me,
The bays and the galleries they loom over me,
With their quarter-mile of pillars growing little in the distance--
It is good for me to be here!
The Zeppelins and Gothas they raid over us.
Our lights give warning, and fade over us.
(Seven thousand women keeping quiet in the darkness!)
Oh, it's good for me to be here.
The roofs and the buildings they grow round me,
Eating up the fields I used to know round me;
And the shed that I began in is a sub-inspector's office--
So long have I been here!
I've seen six hundred mornings make our lamps grow dim,
Through the bit that isn't painted round our sky-light rim,
And the sunshine through the window slope according to the seasons,
Twice since I've been here.
The trains on the sidings they call to us
With the hundred thousand blanks that they haul to us;
And we send 'em what we've finished, and they take it where it's wanted,
For that is why we are here!
Man's hate passes as his love will pass.
God made Woman what she always was.
Them that bear the burden they will never grant forgiveness
So long as they are here!
Once I was a woman, but that's by with me.
All I loved and looked for, it must die with me;
But the Lord has left me over for a servant of the Judgment,
And I serve His Judgments here!
Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a son that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders! Feeds the guns!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Sea Poppies
Amber husk
fluted with gold,
fruit on the sand
marked with a rich grain,
treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:
your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.
Beautiful, wide-spread,
fire upon leaf,
what meadow yields
so fragrant a leaf
as your bright leaf?
poem by Hilda Doolittle
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Sea Child
Sea child
Go swim in the sea here at home
Because it is very hot outside
And the only way for you to cool down
Is to swim in the lake
But the water is not hot in the sea
Because it is nice and cold
Sea child
Why don't you start a collection of sea shells?
And what you will need to start a collection of sea shell
Is to pick up the sea shells outside the sea here at home
Also the seashells are made of any marine mollusk
poem by Aldo Kraas
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Breathing of the Ocean
you exhale
then inhale-sucking up your sins and
regrets from your life
washing away the pain you neglected
the shells left on shore are your only
memory of everything
the sand-your companion is always there
for you but never forgets
your insanity when your anger floods
out onto the dunes and rocks
your breathing is no simple matter
the Sun and Gravity controlling
your every move just as an officer
to a prisoner
but you keep forgetting to forget what
you have done and just live
Leave the shells on shore
they are your only memory
poem by Zia Jaycee May Trent
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A Tortoise's World!
Story of a tortoise who hid in his shell
Under the rock in the well
That is where it would dwell
Until one day a frog chased by a snake, did fell
Both, tortoise and frog were friends since they met
They had so much to talk, a lot of fun, you bet
Frog wanted to go home, leave a new friend, not to forget
Frog left, promised, soon it shall return and bring friends to get
Days passed and tortoise was sad and lonely
It rained and rained, and then came the day lovely
Frog came and came Frogs, croaking and singing jolly
Also were there tortoises, fishes and snails, Joy filled the world wholly!
poem by Manjeshwari P MYSORE
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The child is capable of splitting open the snail, not the tortoise.
Emotions Walk
Sorrow took the bus
to town and met
Happy at the square
but Happy was too busy
so Sorrow went on
vacation with Solitude
who though a bit crazy
was quite a listener, dude
Sorrow decided to change
his name and so became
Relieved, Relieved ran
a marathon with Happy
hare, and Sorrow the
tortoise like snail, Relieved
was not in the perpetual
competition between the
Tortoise and the Hare
and reflected the scenery
better to the spectators there
poem by Ludvig Von Himmelstein
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16 Shells From A 30-06
Words and music by tom waits
Plugged 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six
And the black crow flew through
A hole in the sky
And I spent all my buttons on an old pack mule
And I made me a ladder ftom a pawn shop marimba
And I leaned it up against a dandelion tree
Leaned it up against a dandelion tree
Leaned it up against a dandelion tree
Well I cooked them feathers on the iron spit
And I filled me a sachel full of old pig corn
And I beat me a billy from an old french horn
And kicked that mule to the top of the tree
Kicked that mule to the top of the tree
Blew me a hole bout the size of a kickdrum
And I cut me a switch from a long branch elbow
Im gonna whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six
Whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six
Well I slept in the hotter of a dry creek bed
And I tore out the buckets from a red corvette
Tore out the buckets from a red corvette
Lionel, dave and the butcher made three
You got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinny bone tree
With the strings of a washburn
Stretched like a clothesline
You know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole
Me and that mule scrambled right through the hole
Im gonna whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells ftom a thirty-aught-six
Whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six
Now I hold him prisoner in a washburn jail
And I strapped it on the back of my old kick mule
Strapped it on the back of my old kick mule
Bang on the strings just to drive him crazy
And I strum it toud just to rattle his cage
Strum it loud just to rattle his cage
Strum it loud just to rattle his cage
Strum it loud just to rattle his cage
Im gonna whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six
Whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six
song performed by by Bob Seger
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Torch, A Hand, A Cross!
the silent graves are shouting,
the waves come for the shore.
the time of thunder beckons,
the page is left unsigned.
miracles turn to ashes,
in the hearth of limitless time.
love burns in small fires left unnoticed,
the copper kettle is blind.
there's nothing left to say,
for words are tiny shells.
tiny shells cant hold oceans,
still oceans seek a home!
i only pray perhaps the snow will bring,
a torch, a hand, a cross!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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On Some Shells Found Inland
These are my murmur-laden shells that keep
A fresh voice tho' the years be very gray.
The wave that washed their lips and tuned their lay
Is gone, gone with the faded ocean sweep,
The royal tide, gray ebb and sunken neap
And purple midday,--gone! To this hot clay
Must sing my shells, where yet the primal day,
Its roar and rhythm and splendour will not sleep.
What hand shall join them to their proper sea
If all be gone? Shall they forever feel
Glories undone and world that cannot be?--
'Twere mercy to stamp out this aged wrong,
Dash them to earth and crunch them with the heel
And make a dust of their seraphic song.
poem by Trumbull Stickney
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The Free Trader's Lament
Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice
And shells and corals, brought for my inspection
From the fair tropics-paid a Christian price
And was content in my fool's paradise,
Where never had been heard the word 'Protection.'
'T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone
No customs-house, collector nor collection,
But a man came, who, in a pious tone
Condoled with me that I had never known
The manifest advantage of Protection.
So, when the trading-boat arrived one day,
He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section.
The traders paddled for their lives away,
Nor came again into that haunted bay,
The blessed home thereafter of Protection.
Then down he sat, that philanthropic man,
And spat upon some mud of his selection,
And worked it, with his knuckles in a pan,
To shapes of shells and coral things, and span
A thread of song in glory of Protection.
He baked them in the sun. His air devout
Enchanted me. I made a genuflexion:
'God help you, gentle sir,' I said. 'No doubt,'
He answered gravely, 'I'll get on without
Assistance now that we have got Protection.'
Thenceforth I bought his wares-at what a price
For shells and corals of such imperfection!
'Ah, now,' said he, 'your lot is truly nice.'
But still in all that isle there was no spice
To season to my taste that dish, Protection.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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F-Stop Blues
Hermit crabs and cowry shells
Crush beneath his feet as he comes towards you
He's waving at you
Lift him up to see what you can see
He begins his focusing
He's aiming at you
And now he has cutaways from memories
And close-ups of anything that
He has seen or even dreamed
And now he's finished focusing
He's imagining lightning
Striking sea sickness
Away from here
Look who's laughing now that you've wasted
How many years and you've barely even tasted
Anything remotely close to
Everything you've boasted about
Look who's crying now
Driftwood floats
song performed by by Jack Johnson from Brushfire Fairytales
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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William Jones
Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me,
Needing a name from my books;
Once in a while a letter from Yeomans.
Out of the mussel-shells gathered along the shore
Sometimes a pearl with a glint like meadow rue:
Then betimes a letter from Tyndall in England,
Stamped with the stamp of Spoon River.
I, lover of Nature, beloved for my love of her,
Held such converse afar with the great
Who knew her better than I.
Oh, there is neither lesser nor greater,
Save as we make her greater and win from her keener delight.
With shells from the river cover me, cover me.
I lived in wonder, worshipping earth and heaven.
I have passed on the march eternal of endless life.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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