#sustenance
The dough is molten at oven spring,
like a prayer to the historicity of things ..
Have we not imagined yesterdays
in the ritual of bread ? While our pasts
lay embezzled, on the tongues of men, the
sentiment of centuries colluded in germ,
echoing through heirloom remembrances
those floury philosophies of change.
While I stretch dough to gaze past
a windowpane, as far back as Khorasan ..
they were other names then, another
elasticity in time. Faith is a memory
of settled people in lands of milk and
honey, where every drought, every flood
spawns a new religion .. and the wheat,
always begs the same old question:
Are we there yet, in the fertile crescent
of opportunity ? The grains haven't changed
in their stolid countenance - long, subtle,
germy, cosseted. In the granaries of kings ..
they are willed by royal decree, never to die
in an eternal future and like humankind,
who score bread in the cuneiform of hearts,
grain is always thirsting to seed the land.
Sep 20, 2021
Sep 20, 2021 at 10:49 AM UTC
Summer’s not done
but the oven plinks anyway
and the sizzle of potatoes
in too much fat rattles on
regardless
Aug 22, 2021
Aug 22, 2021 at 8:07 AM UTC
i'm but a stray dog
stealing scraps of life
from a bowl
that is your soul
Oct 10, 2020
Oct 10, 2020 at 4:49 PM UTC
Looking for a plan
to homestead with honey
You find the land
and I’ll bring the money.
Start with 8 hens and
then get a rooster.
Sunlight and dirt are
the best immune booster.
community grown
no, you won’t be alone
walkie talkies instead of upgraded iPhone.
remain lean and fit
use up every bit
for excellent compost mix in chickensh!t.
swale in the roots
of a filtering lily
irrigation to grow
what I’ll use in the chilli
weeds in the cracks
seeds in the snacks
a little help from the axe
and the *** makes us stacks.
And I’ll spin what I comb
from the fellows who roam
on the sod in the loam...
All we will need is
some land and some money,
a pocket of seed,
and true love for honey.
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 5:19 PM UTC
For the last four months, the gears usually churning in my head have halted to an eerie stop. I can't recall anything passed and I can't think of anything new. Dust accumulated on gears big and small making them appear certainly abandoned. It was joined by cobwebs and the spiders who willed them into existence. If I concentrate hard enough I'm sure I will feel them crawling around looking for any sign of life or sustenance. Perhaps these poor creatures are out of luck. I think next, the rust will start to form, and then I will really be in trouble. It will corrode every last piece of metal and take no regard for the way it destroys me. Slowly, the gears will turn orange, and then brown, and then they will cease to exist at all. And that is when I will truly be a lost cause. I guess in a way I'm only getting what I’ve always wanted: for the gears to take a break, to stop churning so mercilessly all the time, to stop working countless possibilities over and over and over again. The most futile effort I’ve ever known. When the gears fall, I think I will be normal. Finally, in correspondence with the people I see around me, I will be just the same. Feigning happiness will not be required, because maybe I will just feel it.
Oct 25, 2019
Oct 25, 2019 at 1:40 PM UTC
Life is grain broken
Barley thrashed and pulled apart at the seams of bread and beer
Grapeless wine
On tender loving vines in a budding vineyard still
Intent on being our sustenance from the start
Such things are born at the hands of man but by the will of Gods kind heart
Oct 3, 2019
Oct 3, 2019 at 7:56 PM UTC
drops falling steadily
upon a misty world
far more than fifty shades of green
dazzle your senses
make you
almost
hear
trees bushes flowers
drinking sustenance
ecstatically
dancing in the rain
May 8, 2019
May 8, 2019 at 10:40 AM UTC
i almost want to laugh at how much i wanted you
sleepless nights. countless.
wondering if I was even a thought on your mind.
if ever the possibility of us fluttered with one beat.
544 days
even if it was for a split second, in a prayer or a curse
you were there. marring everything that i'd built
*
it's funny. He always gives us what we need.
all i needed was something to sully this fabricated sustenance that i wanted so badly to believe in
&
here it is.
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 10:04 PM UTC
(2017)
I had a daily thing to do,
Which hardest to recall,
To consummate the spider
It took a year to fall.
Her webs had hurled the ceiling,
Another one, she caught!
And gave it for the children
When sustenance has brought.
E.
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 5:36 AM UTC
nomad
hungry ghost
trembling hands
outstretched
forever seeking
that which does not
sustain
alms
for the golden
empty bowl
offerings laid
on the morning altar
until there is
no barrier
only
giver and receiver
giving and receiving
adjoined
without end
that which circles
becomes eternal
all is but illusion
we remain
unbound
released from suffering
what was fractured
in wholeness
will be found.
Feb 11, 2016
Feb 11, 2016 at 11:30 AM UTC
(In a letter to his wife, Wallace Stevens, confided that writing was "absurd" as well as fulfilling. What of reading the write?)
What makes you read on? Exquisite words? Or
Exquisite thoughts? Ah, exquisite words forming
Exquisite thoughts. At times so beauteous as to be
Painful! Meter clipping along, tremulous tones trilling,
Making the reader thrill in the "Ah, yes!" moment.
Writing poetry is absurd, if you think about it.
An absurdity bore of necessity.
The reading, a veracious devouring
Of sustenance. The substance of souls poured out.
Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 1:47 AM UTC
I’ve eaten food yes now my stomach’s full
But why is that irrelevant to this
great hunger in my soul? oh how it pulls
What type of sustenance could I have missed?
Not food not water, no, not great success
not recognition, nay, I have this all
And yet there is some more, I must confess
the possibility that I might fall
So try I might to write a sonnet now
But such is not the will of my sweet soul
I woke at night still thinking wond’ring how
tomorrow I would go achieve my goal
And lo! I painted such a masterpiece
I am content, my soul is now at peace
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 10:51 PM UTC