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CK Baker Oct 2017
dust cloud heavy
in an apricot sky
cottonwood mucker
under ambrose pale
whippet and shepherd
mill at the earth patch
yellow birch hangs
over red bench park

combine shavings
in crack rust brown
scissors chips fall
at the back stop
whiskey jack looters
sing patented chords
siblings (and 2 wheel enthusiasts!)
give thanks

joyous retrievers
master the criss cross
bare maples stand
at settlers way
barred owl and blue jay
whistle in the fore-wind
ghosts
and goblins
pull on the seeds

wind gusts belt
over the west gulch
a blood rush churns
in the chilling fall morn
hallowed grounds still
at the midday
quiet reflections
of the afghan
and hound

jumpers unite
at the oxbow
route runners bend
(on a sultry foray!)
meadows exposed
in the framework
ball parks empty
with pennants past

barrel dirt favors
the brew house
crimson and copper
find bracken ridge gate
harvest hands savor
the honey and hops
blankets of color
for a winter's hatch

brush fire kept
under steady peruse
bark bites fly
and embers glow
pine cones drop
from the timber tops
3 wick candles
grace the dinner place

shiver and ******
at the piper's call
cob web dew
on the shadowy gates
a chilled mist mellows
the season's return ~
poets and artists
and dreamers awake
Bo Burnham  Oct 2016
The Fall
Bo Burnham Oct 2016
Mid-October,
with leaves spilled
like colored pencil shavings ---

the streets dicing our town
into neat, unfair portions ---
and me, eatin' that *****.
betterdays Apr 2014
i love you,
fresh from
the shower.
glistening and wet,
smelling of aftershave.
"coolwater" by davidoff.  often aslo sandlewood,
goat soap, from the local
farmers markets.

i love you,
dressed up smart.
in a brook's brother's way
dress pants and shirt,
blue linen vest.
johnny walker silk bow tie,
untied is best. then your twist,
(not as original as you think)
converse skaties, no socks
and  bone bleached cuffs,
turned up.

i love you,
in your work gear.
just come home,
you smell of sweat.  
clean and healthy,
always wood shavings
caught up, in your
unruly shaggy hair.
cargo shorts and
t-shirts,
that have seen,
many days of worksite wear.
size elevens in your hands,
those big feet and freaky toes
bare, ******* in the air.

i love you,
in board shorts and rashie.
rushing into the surf,
hand in hand.
with the energetic bundle
of love,
to which we gave birth.

it is not as though,
clothes made this man,
but boyohboy, you, frame them well.

it s the heart, the chuckle
the hands, the philosphy,
the clever, erudite, caveman,
the downright,
man-dumb bloke.
that endears, your heart to
mine.

it is, that you really listen
and take the time,
to make me feel and be,
phenomenal, wise, sensual
and beautiful beside.

i love you,
best, in my bed.
moving slow and sure,
undressed, silk and velvet.
as we express,
the reality of our love
and whisper words,
well known,
and cry to heaven above.

i love you,
then, here, now and eons
on.
even after the worlds
memory of us,
is  nothing,
dust upon the breeze
our love,
will carry, forth
stardust on heaven's winds
and cries of our love and ecstasy
will birth worlds anew
Kyle Kulseth Jun 2014
Do you hate the way
     that our magnetized times
turn us all to metal shavings--
     push and pull--charged each
day to fill up negative space
with negative attraction?
Were you repulsed when polarities
                                          changed?

Or­ was that me?
     Flipping switches
                     switching sides
                                      siding
with pivot points showing, caught
with pants down?
"Be a man now!"
          While the female end
          of the port calls out,
          "Shipwreck! Shipwreck!
               All men down!"

Count me out at minus 4
     it leaves a balance: minus 3
At minus 10, our blood could freeze
and fall back earthward; blood red snow.
Caught on the tongue it tastes like pennies.
          Tastes just like
          the metal shavings
          we become
          in magnetized times.
               Polarized
and "Family Sized." Underpaid
Overfed. Neutralized America.

Greatest country in the ******* world.

                    Right?
WRITER'S BLOCK

absorbed in haiku
poet absentmindedly
scratches inside of ear
with eraser-tip pencil
breaks off...oh dear...trapped in ear

all sound erased now
tiny tip of eraser
stuck inside of ear
I can hardly hear the hoots
of laughter in A & E

snapped off rubber tip
finally extracted from ear
treated for acute
embarrassment & red face
"The shame will soon fade!" I'm told

wife beside herself
after initial panic
nothing but giggles
bad jokes about writer's block
like Queen Vic...I'm not...amused!



Well...that's today's true life drama done for today...I hope. It could only happen to a poet. Talk about work related injuries! Didn't know haiku could be so dangerous to the health...and you think it's easy being a poet!

The incident brought me back to an earlier time when I had to bring my little girl to A&E in the wee wee hours of the morning when she inserted a red Lego block into an orifice she had an insane interest in exploring. We used to tell her "Don't put things in there dear...they will get stuck and you will have to go to hospital to get them out!"
Little did we know it would turn out exactly like that. She would put all manner of things inside her "special place" to our great consternation....little toy soldiers...pieces of jigsaw. She would call it her "lady's pocket."

late night at A & E
my little girl thrilled to bits
at the adventure
Lego block stuck inside what
she calls her "lady's pocket."

And what manner of haiku was I writing when the pencil eraser disaster struck...why these of course. It could be seen as the pencil's revenge!

in its self the pencil
no longer exists
its shavings dance its nothingness

pencil becoming
nothing but its shavings
so many swirling dervishes

so many pencil shavings
the pencil enjoys
its new life

pencil, then:
not a pencil
wind scatters its shavings

pencil shavings
the secret life of a pencil
no words just little dancers
decompoetry Oct 2010
Pencil shavings spilled in the drawer,
layering over my cerebrum cortex,
like fallout that fell out from my sleeve,
shaken down with me to the ground,
but bound never to leave.

Despite all this,
the pencil tip still snaps
whenever it feels my pain,
regardless if it’s invented or installed.

A thousand pencils broken in my grasp,
yet no words ever seem to last;
rhetorical questions and questionable rhetorics
jabbing my eye as if I’ve already worn it,
but the fabric feels more new to me
than the first day I bought it,

and I can’t remember
what I did with the receipt;
think I might’ve lost it in the gutter
with the other organisms
that were no better;

but maybe, if you would let it,
I could try my luck with some store credit.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2017
<•>
  For A:

The Pleasure of Infection

10:53 pm

our all about
is to be the whittler of our personage,
to both hold the knife with care,
but with risky, reckless artistry,
as we shape of what raw materials we are possessed,
into our own reshaped, reformed
most prized bejeweled possession

never mind the shavings and cutaways fallen,
they are fast away, castaway choices made and cannot be retrieved,
for when we whittle, whether our shape desired
which may be prior envisioned or a vision
from the discovery of performing,
they matter no more,
let them go, in their absence too,
they are part and a whit of you,
but not of you, no longer

our commonality in this: everything,
in everything else, so little

but your honesty and crafted, almost dishonesty both ring true,
and infect us with pleasure of recalling
when we
being cut designed and preparing our statue for
an unveiling, but with no date yet set,
and the loveliness of our mistakes,
were precious do-over opportunities

seek out the infection, the infection of discovery,
the risk of pleasure exposed and
your poetry may be either  
the antibiotics
when the result is red and unpleasant,
or a celebration,
an invitation to us to be a
semi-silent beholder of your artistry

infections heal after pain and discoloration
but new skin always forms,
but at a different pace for each of us

I see the faces in my carpet nodding agreement,
"always new skin"

oh boy. time to go to bed

go seek out the pleasure of infection,
sadly, happily, it is the only way

good night
from an old man who dreams and schemes of
new skin nightly
but never mind me,
my piece long ago writ
and in need of just a tweak here and there,
call it one too many close shavings,
his poem's treasure trove,
a list
of life's minor irritations
and major lifts

<•>

11:16pm
sanuel barber and aaron copeland
are calling ne to bed
Timothy Moore Apr 2015
With a warm load of folded laundry under my chin
I head toward Daniel’s sock drawer
Pulling on the carefully crafted handle I see
My grandfather cutting and planning the cherry tree
Dropped by Hurricane Carol in 1954
Wood shavings fall about his work boots as he
Shapes each panel, never using a ruler, all by eye
Boxing the frame, sizing the drawers, sanding surfaces
By hand, hence 60 years of grandkids and great grandkids socks
The drawer closes effortlessly with a sound
Of living heirlooms and heritage
Of legacy and family
A sound that everything is safe inside
That memorials are made to last
This was used to demonstrate flashback in poetry.
Bailey Roland Nov 2017
the past is an old
dimension
in which i find
myself pondering
often.
if i could erase the pain,
i would with
no regrets
because you took
my once
pure
heart and
destroyed what i once was.
locked doors may keep
others out but
it doesn’t keep me from
the nightmares of
your touch.
there’s a ghost
in that room,
and in my head
that’s full of the
eraser shavings i’ve
created by trying to
forget but the more i
scrub,
the harder it comes
back.
by: bailey roland
onlylovepoetry Aug 2019
the cherry blossom accord/equation

”perfumers use aromachemicals to recreate a cherry blossom accord...(an accord is a scent made up of individual aromachemicals, that when combined, create a harmonious blend where none of the individual ingredients are able to be detected on their own).”

the odor of our lustful eyes,

the sweat, a unique commingling,
a sheen of salted oils body bathing,

crushed green petals of peaches,
crumbled together with the softy fuzz shavings,
the sediment of aromatic fruit juices drippings

our blending bottled in our brains,
none other would recognize but we,
to too two smell each other through and over
floors, concourses, cities, disparate distances

our ingredients secreted (secret),
our flavors cell secreted (secreting)
the world’s silly tittering aroma inserted,
our sparking fingertips touching
add a bush burning burnt odiferous

we seat across from each other in an airport
plastic restaraunt and everyone asks out loudly,
what is that smell, feed me that, taste me that,
as we are irradiating the atmosphere,
as we renegotiate our cherry blossom accord,
fresh signatures, updated, harmony of harmonies, notarized

she smiles, I joke, winking,
we must continue
to meet like this,
the fireworks of we,
of us,
to-gather to-gether,
a getting of giving,
she answers:

take me home and
bathe me in love,
give our bodies shelter
from the world outside,
beside a new spice
have I uncovered,
this will require some
discussion+exploration,
the quantity to be added,
the when, and the how!


what is this new ingredient?
asking puzzled and aroused,
she laughs
(a spice already included),
why it’s called
only love poetry






8/23/19 4:55pm

— The End —