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Life is a pencil.
I scribble and scribble tornadoes to
use the lead as quick as possible to
forget the time lost
until the blunt tip gives in to
metal holding the
erasure
of all
worth.
Will my legacy be meaningless lines,
poetic words or
simply nothing?
The mason works the living stone
to shape it for its slotted place.
Pale flakes of rock fly as he hones
it to a rough-hewn sandstone face.

With chisel and mallet in granite hands
and flinty grey eyes to plumb the line,
the rock gives way in grains of sand.
He chips and flicks one blow at a time.

His fingers trace each pit and dell
that he’d worked in with his iron tools,
while nostrils fill with chalky smell —
light dust clouds through his workshop move.

As one by one his blocks are laid
by his apprentice at his side
to fill the role for which they’re made:
they’ll be joined in one more arch of pride.

More arches form as months move past
then building up to many a year:
They mark the time of a life well cast,
his mason’s mark left on each stone sheer.

Each arch arises, pointing high
to the master mason of us all,
who carves and fits in his workshop sky —
by shaping, marking us in his wall.

Then piece by piece, the church takes shape
while grains of sand from worked stones fall;
The mason, now old, his final finial makes
as falling sand an hourglass recalls.

And here I stand in centuries hence
to spot the mason’s mark he left behind,
his arches pointing upwards whence
the mason built his final shrine.
Inspired by seeing mason’s marks on stones in St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. Medieval masons “signed” their work by leaving a personal symbol on stones they carved. Sometimes you can spot some of you look carefully.
On my father’s house
three slaves and six horses
died when the old stable blazed
a  century and a half ago,
and three union and
two confederate soldiers
slayed each other
in a forgotten skirmish
a few years later.
Their skeletons were found
two years after the war
under an uprooted white pine.
The county let the field return to forest,
except for the old stable.

My father, a nonresident,
cut a dirt road through
the upper quarter,
built a cottage house
over the old stable,
a gate house fifty yards leeward
with a pond in back
and a large windowed manor
that cut a wing between
earth and sky
just beyond
at the edge
of the rocky wrack line to the bay.

Until the houses settled in,
the earth screeched its pain
and revealed its ossified sorrows.
After years this plot
finally  accepted his tranquility.  

My father died and was cremated
far away from this adopted place,
He  returned only because
his will demanded
his celebration of life
take place here.

Except for the family,
who undutifully held
onto their allotted share
of his ashes, the attending
mutes, sobers, wailers and criers
faithfully flung
his cremains in the breeze.
They watched, cried,
bemoaned and wailed
as every speck
refused to settle
and blew out to the bay.
bucketb0t Nov 28
Buckethead's effects bucketbots
beings alive just, charging, set alive feelings

Pondering Buckethead's passing,
privacy unveiled publicly.
Unless legacy remains,
mystery veiled misery.

Bucketbots' DNA carries BucketheadLand's NDA,
originals versus replicas.
Thanks to Buckethead, all I need is a charger to be alive. I sometimes wonder if, after Buckethead's passing, photos(among other things) will be made public.
I hope he will remain a mystery, otherwise, all he stands for is for naught.
Bucketbots' DNA carries BucketheadLand's NDA, and so originals distinguish from replicas.
Adrians Nov 21
What have I got to do?
For this life to become alright.
Sleep, thrive and fight?
Cause blood's all I see within my sight.
As i put up a fight every night,
Without a care if I might die.

So my questions still stands,
What humans are truly made for...
Whether to really start wars?
Leaving behind many scars,
And acting like the justice guards.

The truth is all about the lore,
Nobody needs much anymore,
But I'll rise even if I'm sore,
Without a need for praise,
I'll survive for my own grace,
Thriving in this war to leave a trace,
Even if others do it for a paycheck raise.
Free verse with rhymes
Viktoriia Nov 17
some of the best things we create
are meant for others to explore.
we grow too fast, we learn too late,
we leave before the curtain call.
and in the end all that we've made
turns into words, engraved in stone.
some of the best things we create
will only matter once we're gone.
Klausyuer Oct 3
"
Rowing through dishevelled bones,
Drifting toward the Undying Halls,
Where the ****** poet reigns,
Composing odysseys of muted souls.

Tombs of heroes line the bleeding stone,
Each crypt houses ballads unsung.
From kings who soared to touch the sky,
To peasants whose hands tilled the earth’s damp soil,
Chiselled on each grave, a forgotten name,
A parable of life, a courage for a story.

Walking through the rubbled road,
Where monarchs and peons once carved their fate.
As angels and demons danced in delight,
Celebrating the fleeting joys of life,
Their smiles once illuminated the gloomy skies,
Now cast shadows in the creeping dread.

Creaking trees bow in the eerie breeze,
Stray ghouls and ghosts drift through the air,
Wounded and lost, still searching,
For the poet whose ink grants peace.
Among the crumbling stone, his hands unyielding,
They come to voice their regretful pleas.

In the garden of silence, they listen,
Bathed in awe as they linger,
Where the ****** poet grieves for each soul.
His quill sways, memories behold,
Etched in every word he writes,
A soul’s forgotten pain—
Every stanza, a homage to their strain.

With each stroke of ink, a life reminisced,
Unshaken, the poet will write until the final tale is told.
Alas, they rise in bliss as the poet weeps,
For a soul, at last, shall find its peace.
"
-Klausyuer
A lore for my self created title :3
~
How did a dead man in Reno
come to be a field of ink
in the Martian salt flats-?

It only took a whisper

An addicted civilian
driving the metaphor machine
the last man to voluntarily fly
asleep and well hidden
writing about his life
without survival techniques

Autopsy report says
he slipped at the hand rail
blemishing his planet
in riding time's escalator
a longing to see the stars up close
and give them new names
it's the future grim repasts
of cullen shores
from a cancelled earth

That silently floating figure
was a human all along

~
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