"chisels" poems
my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.
68.5k
Babylon slim
-ness of
evenslicing
eyes are chisels
scarlet Goes
with her
whitehot
face,gashed
by hair’s blue cold
jolts of
lovecrazed abrupt
flesh split “Pretty
Baby”
to
numb rhythm before christ
7.3k
The Woodpecker sings,
In a tune we don't follow.
Pecking endlessly,
Like there is no tomorrow.
Words drawn from the heart,
Lost in the long beak.
With piercing eyes,
A little attention it seeks.
Pauses a second to tell us,
The story of his mother's pain.
Forgets not the cragged branch,
Chisels hard, the Woodpecker again.
Oblivious about the emotions it brings,
Endlessly the Woodpecker sings.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 4:17 AM UTC
They gathered by Williamson Road at sun-up
from neighboring spreads across the Tioga valley.
They came with carts laden with lumber stacks -
with saws, adzes, hammers and sundry tools.
They gathered with the homesteaders bond.
to co-build their neighbor's' dreams.
Sweet music of community echoed off the hills.
Chisels clanged into rock, shaping the foundation,
saws sang into boards to frame a timbered skeleton.
The staccato syncopation of hammers fastened walls
that soon would shelter plowshares, stock and grain.
A smithy leaned over his fire and forge -
chiming iron into sturdy latches and hinges.
Children scurried about mixing squeals and laughter
with exuberant fetching and lifting whenever called.
In two short passings of the sun the deed was done
and a handsome new barn, decked out in a wash of red
was silhouetted tall and proud against the fading light.
Homesteaders gathered at a celebration table
to share a hearty meal adorned by the music
of fiddles, grateful smiles and easy laughter.
Then one by one they steered their wagons home
gazing back at what their labors had wrought -
knowing to the depth of their communal souls
that we are more together than we are apart
Listen up, America! This is the music of community.
We are more together than we are apart.
© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 10:16 AM UTC
you used to come home loudly in the dark but
quietly in the day we’d be together
to compensate
we were only in love on Halloweens
you in those hundred dollar costumes worth two
in material and tiny fingers
**** rats and ER surgeons
to me with a pop-culturally relevant ******* mask
Frankenstein (to the dumb dudes that go to these things)
that chisels me like a jell-o mold
that blurs her infinitely beautiful walking-away
the blooming glances pairing parting lips to talk ********
caking the ***** reeling in our heads
winding round the spindle hooked tight
pulling my hard-hat plastic-green face
to the windmill
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 3:02 AM UTC
the latest theories on the Neanderthal
is they died out due to homosexuality
& the earliest evidence of actual civil
order depicts women as priestesses &
queens & men, even kings as animals;
monsters & giants coexisting w/ teenagers
& old people in complex structures ruled
over by older priests, poets & a professional
warrior class; the king could be murdered
w/ impunity & the queen taken as consort
by the next king or murdered if she proves
too ambitious; & throughout all this, scribes
record the passage of time, the declaring of
laws, engagements in wars, rituals, persona,
comic tales & history; notable women have
a roster of their own, some written by ******
scribes party to their secret names & habits;
all known things; bathhouse elect, her scribe
observing her in the dressing mirror invents
the adventures of her reflection; a princess
never to grow old yet her father-husband is a
bearded elder; her older brother a warrior-prince
& future king; her younger brother/son is the
poet who must reveal what he knows, if only
b/c he'll burst if he has to **** his baby sister
in ritual Hieros gamos w/out telling everyone
exactly how he feels about it; but daring to speak
means being ****** burned at the stake, beheaded
& drawn & quartered, so he writes in secret
[chisels actually, so it's resemblance is mostly
related to relief sculpture
& engraving, but writing], passing
the linear tablets to the young priestess who buries
them beneath the temple floor for some future age
of mankind to discover anew & perhaps heed the
warnings of the coming chaos (the poet, a prophet
before there was such a thing); the ****** priestess
worships him w/ unrequited longing; her heart in
chaos, sharing the poet's vision; nature calls her
to her big brother like a woman loves a man & on
that day when they are to publicly mate the young
siblings are gone & are presumed eaten by the
unseen unseen like so many others before them
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 5:30 PM UTC
Born screaming small into this world-
Living I am.
Occupational therapy twixt birth and death-
What was I before?
What will I be next?
What am I now?
Cruel answer carried in the jesting mind
of a careless God
I will not bend and grovel
When I die. If He says my sins are myriad
I will ask why He made me so imperfect
And he will say 'My chisels were blunt'
I will say 'Then why did you make so
many of me'.
3.4k
chasing dollars
I honestly would rather sleep
dreams of dollars chasing me
armed with chisels they chip away at me
I'll succeed
someday, you'll see
You can't expect things to be ethical
in a System like this
dollars make me a power-man
I can do what I can
because I can buy what I want
hording doll hairs
I've amassed such a pile
other 'chasers' are starving for a taste
those little pac-men
nibbling away at my Zen
I hope they starve so my battles could end
They can't expect things to be ethical
in a Circuit like this
chasing dollars
because now I need more
A false kind of security
now my stomach is sore
beggin' for a nibble
what an awful *****
she doesn't even care that I'm all out of doll hair
what an unethical mess
someone now
this must be
addressed
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 29, 2012 at 12:40 PM UTC
my dear Cosette,
why did you fall?
why didn’t you pick
yourself back up?
I saw you
on the battle lines
red shemagh
tied about your neck
I saw the bayonet
pierce your
breast
to match your
red
your man’s
clothes
why do we
disguise ourselves,
Cosette?
why don’t women
make history?
why can’t a woman
take a bullet?
my dear Cosette,
we fall
on words
on chisels
on the battle lines
sometimes we don’t
get back up
sometimes we die
before we are dead
my dear Cosette,
I watched you
bleed
I heard you
scream blue
******
you were my sister
and I was the sculptor
to capture
the peace of death
on your face
my dear Cosette,
I watched you die
now rise
to the battle lines
rise
with your head high
let me resurrect you
with my hands
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 4:26 PM UTC
I have longed to be like Jesus since the day I was reborn
With a heart formed by the Father, by His hands so strong and warm
For although my soul was perfect, this old heart had far to go
It was lofty and self serving; never broken, hard as stone
But the only way to change my heart was not to mold like clay
He must carve it with a chisel that would break the stone away
So pain became my teacher and its lessons I learned well
As every trial would test me with each wounding swing that fell
One day I asked my Father as He formed His shapeless art
"Where did You find that chisel, Lord, that breaks so hard my heart?"
He took me to a village, somewhere, long before my time
And showed me where a blacksmith, there, was working near his mine
The local king had ordered that some special spikes be made
To perform a certain service later on that ancient day
The smith stoked up his furnace till it singed his heavy beard
And the strikes that made his hammer ring were heard by every ear
Then he spun the massive whetstone, pressed each spike against its edge
And the sparks shot out like lightening as he sharpened up the ends
The spikes, still warm from grinding, then were gathered in a cloth
And delivered to the mountain with the prisoner and the cross
Instantly I understood just what he made them for
The chisels used to shape my heart first crucified my Lord
Now every stroke that life will bring I'll welcome like a prize
For every chip that falls away will make me more like Christ
May 30, 2011
May 30, 2011 at 3:14 PM UTC
lead me down the hall to dance in the secret of the dark
your blackened past and your hot hot hands
pressing my temples, turning my body into rumble
trembling for your delicate deliciousness
the world is morphing with my pipe dream visions
my face chisels, my heart whistles
my life is lived in intervals
between sunlight and dawn
between the long night walks
chasing the moon, interwoven in the oasis of your room
Jun 10, 2022
Jun 10, 2022 at 12:22 PM UTC
The way you wrapped your legs around mine
slowly grinding against me
moving smoothly through the water
letting the steady motion guide us.
The way my hands wandered
weightless in the warmth
blindly making their way
across your wet marble skin.
The way your hair was carelessly put up
in a loose bun that draped, lazy
heavy to the right
outlining the tender chisels of your face.
The way my eyes investigated
tracing the dark lines of your body
meeting with your eyes for brief moments
then falling back into the curves of your hips.
I fear all of this is too much,
for me it's love, for you it's lust.
Jul 21, 2011
Jul 21, 2011 at 6:25 PM UTC
Some are cast in metal
others chipped from stone
yet more are shaped by hand in clay
what you sculpt, you own.
When your arms wrapped around me
I felt a process start
to render me defenceless
'gainst your sacred art.
I yielded to your motion
gave my skin up to the blade
had no cause to resist
the image you had made.
My essence pooled in trickles
flooding indents as you pressed
your fingertips into my flesh
there in rapture, I was blessed.
I yearned to feel the chisel
every scrape an evolution
each fetter of the holy rasp
my growing absolution.
I stand in gleaming marble
posed by you alone
forever on this pedestal
inert upon my throne.
In fatal love I slumber
and wishes are for fools
in luminescent, aching stone
naked of your tools.
Each tapping point a petal,
the slamming maul of lust
where once caressed by chisels
now I gather dust.
I dream of you approaching
to polish me anew
so I may shine in constant thanks
at being made by you.
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 11:34 AM UTC
A carpenter found driftwood
From a wreck upon the sea
He looked at it with interest
What kind would it be?
He found that it was oaken
Mighty, strong and hale
But it had been broken
By tempest and by gale
He was building houses
From such sturdy oak
So he took the driftwood
Upon it for to work
He carved with sharpened chisels
He began to sand
He had red, raw cuts of pain
And splinters in his hands
He worked with it patiently
Imposed on it his will
It will be something wondrous
He's working on it still
He loves that piece of driftwood
He salvaged from the sea
For the Carpenter is Jesus
*And that piece of wood is ME*
SoulSurvivor
(C) 6/23/2016
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 11:44 PM UTC
*She ached for
her true love
But met only miners
of the heart.
She wept crystals
of diamonds.
from her
china blue eyes.
And when they cut her
gold bled from her veins.
But the miners
stole everything
of value from her.
They plundered
and hacked her with
hammers and chisels
until she had nothing left
for them to steal.
now she weeps
just salty tears
And only blood flows
from her wounds.*
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 9:33 AM UTC
Seldom am I so direct,
Like Wayne, Parker, Kent,
I prefer my subterfuge.
But these words are penned
(figuratively speaking)
by the penultimate,
tumultuous,
and often callous wordjockey
yours truly.
As I've said, I'm seldom
more than the sum
of my company kept
*[let slip,
reacquainted,
self-righteous reconciliation,
regret, repeat]*
And today, I find
myself
writing thrice,
twice toward pride,
once of consequence.
Que sera sera.
I'm lead like a horse
who had to drink -
or perhaps imbibe?
your softly streaming sentences,
words which kicked like a mule.
Remember, I was hoarse,
parched.
On that parchment, I find these words:
I am a cause...
Truth at last, truth at last,
Thank God almighty...
...you know the rest.
I stand on this principle -
that I cannot stand at all
sin ustedes
your words the salve,
my words the therapy.
"Progress."
Just Cause.
Now, waxing on
toward the triumphant,
anthemic Aye!
If you are the cause and the casualty,
then each daily account
of what might be made martyrdom
should be cannon.
Am I eliciting allusions and assumptions?
Inadvertently, but then precariously so.
So the pieces fall,
the causality, literary
the eventuality, progressive.
Aye, we are naught but what
we are made of by others.
So each concussive consonant chips and chisels
off the ol' block.
To a good Mister John Henry,
my gratitude.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 4:24 AM UTC
Such a classic mortal blunder to lay
my spine as it erodes, graceless, inelegant
on Galatea’s cold, ivory arms;
such delicate carvings can never be human, look human,
feel human under my lonesome bones.
I long to see you flinch and break
into fine, liquid, rain of dust blinding me,
covering the walls of this room
in a blameless shade of white: a new asylum ward
for my kind of insanity,
you say.
It envelopes like light around my awe
and my forlorn limbs,
tangled with Galatea’s unmoving ones.
I look for comfort within brittle carcasses
scraped of everything they could ever give.
The quiet persists eerily.
But here, Pygmalion’s gifts remain untainted:
the apex of auger shells, the beak of a songbird
the blunted ceriths, the rusty chisels
all impaling my spinal bones.
Yet the sculptor’s kisses, long erased,
the careful carvings, long defaced,
long reduced into a Grecian ruin.
I bury my body on your arms yet they find no rest
against the ghostly pleas of mammalian tusks.
How many for your fingers?
How many for your hair?
Tell me, Galatea, were you carved to bear the weight of
all the sea salt I swallowed as I drowned?
Soften under my meandering thoughts; I long
to see you flinch and break — like all the dead elephants —
any reminder that you yield pliantly to the voice
of the love goddess, that you were once turned human.
Break now, your solid arms, under my own collapse
over the sea foam caught on fire.
I am no longer bending and weeping to pick myself up.
Here it all goes down and ends:
my bones,
and yours,
burning,
snapping.
Nothing —
nothing less glorious will last after us.
— Fray Narte
Dec 5, 2022
Dec 5, 2022 at 10:05 PM UTC
I
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds.
II
The night is of the colour
Of a woman's arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself.
A pool shines,
Like a bracelet
Shaken in a dance.
III
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.
IV
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.
V
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.
VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
1.8k
I didn't come here for the overpriced beer, that's not gonna cure what ales me.
What ales me is here, hidden beneath the cure.
Inaccessible, leaving hope that makes it only more painful.
They don't know what to make of me, for I am not defined.
But it's their indifference that chisels away at parts of me until these parts are no longer mine.
I am not crazy, repeating these patterns.
Dropping placebos and falling victim to patterns.
The deafening music, sweating skin and the passion.
I watch the others take it in, it's my only distraction.
And she'll turn to me at the most awkward time, maybe buy me a drink or feed me a line.
And she knows she's just fishing to see if she's still got it. And when I force a half smile she knows for a second I bought it.
If I turn her away then I'm the **** and mistaken, I'm left with only myself to blame.
If I tell her we've never met that it's her that's mistaken, she'll have her confidence restored and her senses awaken.
She'll move on for the night and look to upgrade. I'll sit and try to explain away the trap that she laid.
It gets late enough that I can pretend that I tried, and I make as if I have a reservation with a cabbie outside.
We're all born alone. Everyone dies. But for a few seconds, a few get to lie.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:32 PM UTC
shapes of yr many most favorite possessions
people looming in the lintel browsing through the pockets
yr posthumous stare chisels down the bark
280 & Alpine
taking out the post
east alto, west alto
sandwiches and snickers bars
let there be pizza
where beds happily move
and there are no swing sets or cell phones
let there be pizza
eighteen year olds swinging from the rooftops to the pool
no music played to remember it by
yr handlers are too many now
lost in the green lasers and spotlights
there are only two hands to make this memory
the quiet dark does not take it, new mouths do not take it
old words tearing off the night
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 12:10 AM UTC
lithe on corridors
insidewalk
slink up and down
sliding hollows underground
outstretched on the edge
underscoring ley lines
I cuddle the crevice
ear pressing the cold
awaiting your gait
tick talk
our primordial
past chisels hum
verbing part lips
howhowhow
to bridge these walls
so I can
taste myself
on your mouth
I miss it like hell
Apr 16, 2017
Apr 16, 2017 at 7:03 AM UTC
TWO fishes swimming in the sea,
Two birds flying in the air,
Two chisels on an anvil-maybe.
Beaten, hammered, laughing blue steel to each other-maybe.
Sure I would rather be a chisel with you than a fish.
Sure I would rather be a chisel with you than a bird.
Take these two chisel-pals, O God.
Take 'em and beat 'em, hammer 'em, hear 'em laugh.
1.5k
a whisper—
it creeps through my extremities,
& it persists:
even when my fatherforgivemeforIhavesinned is clutched nearby,
like a slowburningcinder
that chisels at the arches of my feet,
& simmers in my lockedup[treasure]chest,
it tells me:
*“iwonderwhenyouwilljustgivein,mylove,
giveintotheembersandburstintoflames.”*
[& these wrists, they ache,
with a promise they once held for me—
justopenthechestandyouwillbesetfree]
—
& I hate to be the bearerofbadnews but,
you are a part of it, as well,
my l.ong o.verdue v.icissitudinous e.scape,
& in your lapse of silence,
you whisper, too.
*“iwonderwhenyouwilljustgivein,myfriend,
giveintotheembersofyourheartache
andsquelchouttheselickingflames.”*
—
& as the forest is left to its smolders
& as the smoke begins to clear,
I lie awake in
the lulling hours of the morning,
inspecting the charring on my heartstrings
& the scorched remnants of my exhausted energies,
waiting for healing to awaken
among the first few raindropsofremembers & sprigsofspring,
[itrustyou,itrustyou,itrustyou]
only to be engulfed in the rhythm of your illumination again,
for my leaves are dry
& the winds are strong,
& the hypnosis of your glow is too seductive to disregard.
Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 3:14 PM UTC
take rain from sky
take the way tall men straighten your stance
take the students of dance
see the little ballerina stretch her toes
see her mother warm with the floodlight
take your plea to the judiciary
take your eye to the statue of David
smear on the dust of Somalia
rub raw the frost of Croatia
refresh your aim in the heights of Angola
but do not stop only at this
breathe every impediment
trust every promise of clemency
stumble if you will
fall under cease-fire
take it all
take the watchmaker
bent over time
with fine tools
clasp each second
take the sculptor who
chisels and scalpels for the grandiose
later in your armchair
fold creases in your newspaper with care
be with every nourishment
be with the cloth of your nakedness
make sail for your harbour of origin
remember the milk of your mother
warm or cold or sweet if it is so
appease hunger
with the ambidextrous mouth
of a soldier
fed with death in his jungle
be the bystander, be the bi-partisan,
the ******* the timeless,
the dancer
be it all
breathe each increment
do it now
measure the infinite
the possible
MChallis © 2015
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
Tools of the Patriarchy
Fence pliers, claw hammers, crescent wrenches
Nail sets, c-clamps, wood planes, mitre boxes
Come-alongs, White Mule gloves, ball-peen hammers
Jumper cables, wood planes, mill bstrd files
Plumb bobs, twist bits, cross-cut saws, ripping saws
Tire irons, air compressors, pressure gauges
Brace-and-bits, drawing knives, pneumatic jacks
Cold chisels, clamps, mortar trowels, channel locks
A twelve-hour day plus d*mned low pay, you bet!
And
A work ethic, knowledge, muscles, and sweat
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 1:47 PM UTC