"ballast" poems
-
all my mistakes in life
add weight to a scale
of self-judgement–
so far i sense
a balance—
yet it feels to me like
i've let so much ballast
get washed overboard...
s jones
2022
.
Jan 25, 2022
Jan 25, 2022 at 5:57 AM UTC
For life is continuous as long as they wait to be read
these inked paths opening into the future, page after page,
every book Its own receding horizon. And I hold them, one in each hand,
a curious ballast weighting me here to the earth.
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
Losing a tail
Is like losing a rudder
Like losing a ballast
Stability must be found elsewhere
As a quadruped there are four points of contact
A biped has only two
How do we replace that stability?
With aspiration
~ Extinct ~
**** erectus*
and
**** neanderthalensis*
~ Extant ~
Hominids
Great Apes
Primarily lumbering along on all fours
Quadrupedal
Except Us
**** sapiens*
What mechanism allowed for bipeds?
Natural selection?
Or a naturally selected collective vision
Through collective perspiration
Art is used to mine dream-time
Inspiring the masons among us
The art is the plan
The architecture is built upon
And the builders perspiration
Leads to the built environment
How do you cap it?
Egyptians used a capstone
Aspiration
Leading to
Inspiration
Leading to
Perspiration
Leading to
A
Spire
Naturally
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 3:58 AM UTC
Now here you come again to fetch me from the sea,
Ballast in my bones, this girl was born to sink;
A cautionary tale, I slip between the wood,
Limbs whittled thin and feet stained with soot.
But never-mind the waif; she waxes so pale
Drunk on dejection, I ponder the veil
Leaden and listless, for the sirens will sing:
Amaranthine is the color I bleed for the sea.
So I’ll spit out my sorrows wherever they listen,
Pumped me with pills and said that they fixed it.
The darlings have died off; the dolls are all broken,
Just left is me, thin-skinned and soft spoken.
And I’d rather lick knives than chew on love’s gristle,
Like a dog on a chain, I’d run when you whistle.
Far from it now, yet lost in the maze:
Chasing ways out for the rest of my daze.
Dec 18, 2022
Dec 18, 2022 at 2:18 PM UTC
On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.
The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In Cassidy's haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight
To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.
As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.
And I thought of the wasps' nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.
The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.
I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,
The best job at the mill
With plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.
Maybe Mary might call round...
And then I came to the haggard gate,
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.
3.1k
Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah, heave her short again!
Over, ****** her over, there, and hold her on the pawl.
Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and full—
Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all!
Well, ah, fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love—
Down, set down your liquor and your girl from off your knee;
For the wind has come to say:
“You must take me while you may,
If you’d go to Mother Carey
(Walk her down to Mother Carey!),
Oh, we’re bound to Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!”
Heh! Walk her round. Break, ah, break it out o’ that!
Break our starboard-bower out, apeak, awash, and clear!
Port—port she casts, with the harbour-mud beneath her foot,
And that’s the last o’ bottom we shall see this year!
Well, ah, fare you well, for we’ve got to take her out again—
Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free.
And it’s time to clear and quit
When the hawser grips the bitt,
So we’ll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from the sea!
Heh! Tally on. Aft and walk away with her!
Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall!
Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy.
Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul!
Well, ah, fare you well, for the Channel wind’s took hold of us,
Choking down our voices as we ****** the gaskets free.
And it’s blowing up for night,
And she’s dropping light on light,
And she’s snorting under bonnets for a breath of open sea,
Wheel, full and by; but she’ll smell her road alone to-night.
Sick she is and harbour-sick—Oh, sick to clear the land!
Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign over us—
Carry on and thrash her out with all she’ll stand!
Well, ah, fare you well, and it’s Ushant slams the door on us,
Whirling like a windmill through the ***** scud to lee:
Till the last, last flicker goes
From the tumbling water-rows,
And we’re off to Mother Carey
(Walk her down to Mother Carey!),
Oh, we’re bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!
2.8k
God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.
God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.
The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels--
the tablet of the world--
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.
He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.
2.5k
You said to me
Stand strong and firm
And by mast you would
Set sail.
Stay and sate
Our love would prevail
The rampant hunger
That swells
The tide
and draws
The moon
Baited and starved
Into the night
Yet here I am
Alone at sea
With only the breeze
For company.
A seagulls song
And the sound of calamity
Lapping and slapping
At my ego.
Like bounty
Lost And found
In darkness and depth
And heaving chests
With rusty locks
And ghosts
Stirred and stricken
I cry silent and taken by the deep
I am green with envy that you might want me.
I am left to the birds
Stark at my post
And sailing single
In this boat built for two
I need you
To want me
Navigate and steer
And plot the course
Of my flesh
Saline sweat and brackish
Brine.
I am not a ****
Cast upon shore
A ***** to the
Land-walker
No more.
I am ballast
And tempest
Uproar.
Downwind
I wait for your
Scent/
The descent
Of your body in mine.
I have time
And rhyme
And sailors song
To while the time
In which I long
And sailing alone
You will find me
Your boy lost at sea
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:52 AM UTC
Mozart fades into Monet,
you are the ivory keys,
piercing the silence,
tangled in echoes of an angel's voice,
awaiting to explode into the
mystery of my colours...
Hushed within a silence,
fading beyond something grey,
always meant to shimmer in sapphire.
Love is never bound to soft silhouette's,
though the fault line is so fragile,
the hush can rupture the ballast,
deteriorate the fingerprints
left, moistened, in an exploration of hands
christened in worship of the journey,
sliding between the hymnal of thighs
scarred in the numbness of quiet bruises,
aching for the press of your needs
to awaken the ache, and kiss the morning
held fresh in my eyes,
with a glance into hunger,
still fresh upon your tongue...
My soul rests within the ebony shadows,
straddling your fingers, as they
pound the song from your heartbeat
descending into a crescendo of requiems divertimento,
unraveling all of these unspoken words,
in soft whispers of your embrace
Curve the edge of my thirst
in that place where the heart stills,
that place, where the pulse quickens
so deep inside the quiet of your benediction
redeem me in the corners of your smile,
and I will paint my love in Monet,
so soft, upon the canvas of this
Mozarts serenade of us
The aftermath, a concerto,
a delicate stroke of crimson
smeared upon the ivory parchment of my skin,
"I love you" etched
beneath the wings of your song,
...I am the unspoken lyrics...
you are the music of my life
fading into the colours
...of love's last breath...
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 5:12 PM UTC
She noticed the basking shark was wounded,
weeping vaginal blood.
The tall man in a fedora whispered as he passed.
Whipped by exploratory waves, she blushed.
The horizon was a hazy green line dipped in red.
She had been there since morning
searching for love,
and found it
from a six-pack merman offering solace
as he rode on the silvery
back of a ray.
As he approached, the sun at his back,
she moaned and threw out her arms
like a supplicant.
Complete at last, the sand grasping at
her shoeless feet, she sank
towards the earth’s distant core
using her arms as uncertain ballast.
She awoke with a shiver
brushed away the sand
and headed back home.
The shark had turned belly-up,
scavenged by seagulls.
Another day-dream enjoyed in the
empty hours between lunch and dinner
between her third cup of tea
and fourth cigarette,
her children snoozing in
the back bedroom. Half-slumbering
in a town barked at by bothersome seagulls
where an unencumbered sun
set on a postcard shoreline.
Planning the rows of petunias to be
planted by the hedge,
making shopping lists,
writing novels, never to be published,
staring out of her windows at the sea
she waited for her husband’s return,
tedious evenings of T.V.
and coition under the brightly coloured duvet.
The waves that overwhelmed her, flooding her senses,
were her own. The man
in the fedora had made her smile.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 10:59 PM UTC
My pudding cup won't stand up
It can't support the weight of the spoon
When it's full of pudding it holds it up just fine
but when the delicious ballast is removed
and the spoon placed back in the cup
it tips over
like a small sailing boat
in the hands of an inexperienced crew
It's like the designer of the pudding cup
couldn't conceive of a time
when a spoon would be in the cup
without pudding
So the cup is clutched in hand
then emptied
and discarded like a husk
never to meet table again
and the spoon?
tossed in the sink with a wine glass
and an emptied bowl
until recently full of hot creamy clam chowder
and crunchy oyster crackers
still cradling it's spoon mind you
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
Laughter at the pirate ship wreck
Incarcerated alibi.
Self-doubt and enemy envy.
Post neurosis mental chariot waiting patient set to test and task the palatial steel ballast.
Starting to startle itself awake according to twilight reporting recognized first and focused lazily to be remembered later for the first half percent.
Decent decline descending darkness ascending atoms attending arson. Gallant grey nose for cold weather bubbling wound **** streak pillow.
Plain sight eyes glazing reminiscent veteran folded over beer bottle drunk at home the unknown soldier.
Spirit spear piercing glowing nexus weightless flying high shadows vacant samurai clutch in an adjacent basement.
Bleeding bone fractured paper homes manufactured homeless jeering platelet picked and cast like a rune on your first born baby blanket.
Hallow, heated, grave displayed, and looped backwards.
Happy fishing!
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 7:56 AM UTC
leaked
violet pulse
rapid electrodes
vapor
fail
electron fuse
tube light
ultra input
intensity
flicker
strain
power percent
breaker
visible heat
filament pins
ballast burn
shortwave
excited
electric
gas
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 6:11 PM UTC
Love too strong for
those who bear it
is a curse invoked
by a deficit of worth.
It is not enough to
seek validation through
a proxy designated
Heaven on Earth.
With no center of gravity,
no anchor in character,
obsession is the limit
of the capacity to love;
Projecting impossible
desires and untenable
expectations amounts
to blasphemy of.
True love may not be
forever or easy;
parting may never
be pleasant to bear;
Love is not merely
what's pleasing or comfortable;
love is a crucible;
love is not fair.
Those fleeting failures
and moments of error
are chances at triumph,
a challenge to change.
Breaking our boundaries,
ballooning outward:
love is inevitably
savage and strange.
Unbefitting to cling
to the bridge that enables
a star in its wand'ring
to cross the abyss;
To carry the ballast
of vast insecurity
over that chasm,
untenable risk;
Or swallow the poison
of foolish dependence
on whimsical paramours,
obesiance thereof,
To be hung from the neck
by detestable premises,
weak and debased
by untenable love.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 8:10 PM UTC
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name,
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worship’d be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtile than the parent is,
Love must not be, but take a body too,
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw, I had love’s pinnace overfraught,
Ev’ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;
Then as an Angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my loves sphere;
Just such disparity
As is twixt Air and Angels’ purity,
‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s will ever be.
1.6k
July Twenty Fourth, Nineteen Fifteen
The river was murky, The weather was seen
The steamer Eastland, firm on her bow,
loaded with coal, port side and sound
A captain, that's ***** and stout in his manner
stands on his bridge with an arrogant cantor
Mooring lines set, stern to the bow
Gangplanks are steady, awaiting a crowd
Employees of Western dressed to their nines,
a picnic awaits, everything's fine
Families with smiles and tickets in hand
looks up in wonder, the Eastland she stands
Boarding commences and loaded up full
Twenty Five Hundred, no more to call
Port side list, a lean to the river
Ballast is leveled, some felt the shiver
Worries amount to settling fears,
a starboard list and beckoning tears
Back to the port, no coming back
tipped on her side, everything's black
Panic in fever, screams are abound
echoes in motion, no silence no sound
The river's chaotic with bodies afloat
Kenosha stands ready and rescues the most
Eight forty four lost their lives
In the armory they lay and Chicago cries
The Eastland still rests in our hearts and our mind
Not a second or hour can turn back the time
Jul 25, 2015
Jul 25, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
Oh ferocious angels,
lionesque children of Eden
on narrow streets and polluted alleyways
whispering cruel things to each other,
you're radiant in your belligerence
and as my enemies you are virtuous.
Beside me in this carpeted rectangle room
a faint glow exhales
from the tall alpine ivory lamp illuminating
firefly wings of blossoms
alluringly exuberant in the afternoon sun-ray
diamond shine and shimmer.
Dusty tin roofs billow
firewood smoke in the thick violet shade fog over-top cabin potted
mountains and hills sprouting firs and rose bushes abounding.
Spectrum cast chandeliers echo staircases which
jot up and up arduous ruby landings,
hardwood floor cracked
and stacks of novels ballast the senescent hallways
of bookshops where poets works and journals diaries and memoirs blur
the serpentine walls with memories.
Angelic the soul which is too often contaminated with
avarice rebellious to concord living
harmonious midst dew grass and calm waters in residential lakes
empathy equanimity, far from Bodhisattva.
Few kinds of darkness transcendental
subduing other darkness to a weak shadow.
There's an importance to admiring the delirium of metropolitan roads on roads
this intricate unspoken connection to those who
rest by stoplights and crawling traffic metallic molten aura of
cars in July heat.
Paying attention to the open window of adjacent apartments
where Mr. Norris waters his tulips and shares this moment
modern meditations practiced
finding a balance in such an anxious
volatile world like this.
Oh ferocious angels, impetuous
forlorn seraphs,
sing! sing and soar!
Boundless is our ardor
and our passion.
Unenclosed is the lion
in it's bloom.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 3:09 AM UTC
My body disobeys me.
Each step forces me to exercise parts of my body
I didn’t know had subsisted.
I hardly controlled my maneuvers,
as I basically drifted.
Even my helmet is showing signs of weakening,
under these steepening,
enormous pressures.
Terrified and trembling with my humanly gestures,
I must have sent vibrations throughout
the cold water as the creatures began to circle over my head.
I could see off in the distance
the submarine of my former occupation.
A distant iconic stationary emblem of my failures.
Then, the porpoises and scaled beasts parted
to contrast a heavenly sight.
*No corpses or failed feasts started
in the ballast of this night.*
For a maiden of duality
saved my beckoning soul
from the eternal slumber
that had otherwise awaited.
The rest of this tale I leave up to the mystery
of word of mouth.
But what must be said is that underneath
the blue waters lies
much that we do not begin to conceive.
Take it or leave it,
I cant force a man to believe.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 7:44 PM UTC
a sorry fist forward
and mortally i follow
coldly into the first dark flint of day
not my natural habitat
so quiet.. or near so
a vacancy for occasional clean
isolated noises
i pause and pass a scan about
the hailing lack of conscious population
all packed away
hauntings themselves in beds
- like some form of post apocalyptic storage -
they add a vague lended charge
nature is on a limited budget this early
no birds yet and no solar minting
a massive racoon with only three legs crosses my intended path
in its mouth a gory wreckage
i steep to make balance
but my pores won't take it
i am sickened by the ballast
of my breakfast
i hollow onward into these new conditions
still deriding what to be
a tourist and an informer dud
i have switched to the dayshift
from off the spire
of my regular hour
the evening routine
breathing is surprisingly ***** at this time
a failing of settled pollution :
the public buildings and restaurants
are muggy in their overnight stale degassing
awaiting air currents and dispersal
the first gulls of the morning
emit a defeating siren
spearing through detritus
they dispel the bells of purity
somehow i've made my port of call
a struggling invertebrate
in this state i dispose my spirit
at the salted threshold
security staff and sanitation process
between the sets of automatic doors
a workplace made alien
and adverse to me
purely by
the indecent hour
of day
Apr 14, 2022
Apr 14, 2022 at 9:53 AM UTC
I know the contours of your face
just like the streets of my hometown
you'd squint your eyes
when laughing
at the corner of Main and Dow.
Blacktooth Brewery
on frigid Friday nights
frosted glasses, fogging breaths
and laughs caught up
in tightening chests.
Kendrick Park can keep its towering trees
and midnight charms
if I can keep your laughter with me
when I sail for newer shores
Something in familiar signs,
buzzing blackened Bighorn skies,
keeps us just above the water line--
afloat for one more night.
Sheridan Iron Works
Red, rigid lettering a raised, distant hand
Watch it wave from on the hill
above the Kendrick boardwalk,
soak December in our smiles
choking back our April cries.
Snake's head yawning
from the I-90 exit
slithers down Coffeen and tails
our icy footsteps
Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Shake this town to its bones
with our Thurmond Street jokes
and our glowing Gould Street hearts.
I hope
this is enough
to buoy our ***** up
against the weighty ballast
of this tiny, yawning town.
Settlers of Catan
played on a windy Wednesday night
over another drowning round
of clinking Wagon Box pints.
The contours of your face,
icy streets of our hometown,
our squinting, gasping laughter
on the corner of Main and Dow.
Blacktooth Brewery.
Frigid Friday nights.
Fogged up glasses. Frosting breaths
and laughing, clutching tightening chests.
This freezing town
will test your mettle.
Settle up and bring your friends.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
It was there he lay thinkin' 'bout his day
the closing days of the year last,
'twas then he'd be a man, and have to sail under his own mast
but the winds stagnant as they be he'd nay sail out his own bay
sad as the sea, his heart heavy as the anchor weigh
like n' anchor on da' sea below he shows the rust of his past
he sits alone with his eyes lost; heavier than stones of ballast
wishin' for not soft winds, but torrents of a blistering storm night and day
N' 'bitious young lad, itchin' to go
But like the Anchor he'll stay, below the ladder's lowest rung
Unlike the Anchor he be, he strives to be a Sailor Free
Silly as it be the barnacles and rust be all there be, the angel's last song sung,
No runnin' away, no cargo to hide away in stow,
No words left to say, only a lump at the end of the Anchor's tongue.
z.m.
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 8:49 PM UTC
1
O black golden cleanser
O ebony shrine ballast
Pry open mine eyes,
sharpen my senses like cutlery
& envelop me—
Is the day so young
another cup please, just to
Get me going
2
Heat
Not quite that of a fire
"but trust me, don't touch it"
Let the smoke stiffen
& soften become the
summation of particles & at once
lose all sense of being
I'll have a smoke now—
maybe I'll kick it a little later
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 1:06 AM UTC
Tinker, tailor, soldier, ****
Still on the wrong end of a gun, and
I feel like a walking phallus-y, spelled with a "ph"
A balancing act on a ballast beam
I'm sick of splitting pills
Like splitting hairs
Over an equal piece of the same share
I'm sick of playing fair
Like alliteration taught to an illiterate
In a post-biblical nation
I’m trying on your patience
And the monstrosity that is my social viscosity
Is borne consciously
Proceed cautiously
But who would I be without the depravity?
The sick and sadder me?
Another puzzle piece probably
Resigned to believe his beliefs aren't faulty
Fuckin' salty, and
Steeped in a brine of designer beef and corn feed
Too yellow to bleed
No
When I speak, I beg you to see
Suffering is a similarity, synonymous with life
So proudly riddled with strife, I spit
This wisdom demands sacrifice
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
Lately, I've tried to relate greatly to the daily slew of poppy brew and wisdom grew by the tv news crew spittin their wisdom from the pedestal push of the routine pedal stool mush that slid across the floor of lava rocks and hot spots that rupture soon enough when the keys rattle in doorknob and the whiny creak opens with meek silhouettes on shadowy walls of latex seepage...the colors' fingers stretch from the threads, penetrate the outlet, crawl through the cord, and tap my brain through the spine post run. Whiskey was the inception, but the jar was the culprit for sure: the vessel that drilled my brains and scratched the black background noise of my dreams. Logic plays in the background but the car fume imagery bores me lately. Need someone else to care to pretend for a minute, need two cafecitos to go, need three job securities to take a vacation from three life voids, y necesito una chica seria for the rest of this conversation...unless the inconvenience of engagement confuses she like the language attempts on me. Gone fishing, for the missing, for the family don't listen, for the docks do rock, and the waves make the the light prowl the wake off the take of the bow of the ballast aft tower. Opportuney viola sin duda, ninazungumza kiswahili...clock me in, blanket spanker, tuck away your worries. I love you and care about you too
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 1:42 AM UTC