"fastenings" poems
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From an ornate podium
the orator spoke words--
..extraordinarily elaborate ones..
as if,
as if
But those who know..
we who have laid low,
down in to the trenches
as grunts, both outside
and inside
of the wire..
Those who have quietly
done their legwork..
who have accepted their
difficult fate as that borne of
and in to, a training.. an equipping;
lay low,
lay low
. . . .
The throngs
at the foot of the podium--
mesmerized by their own need
to be mesmerized, never even
noticed the children
who in their innocence, peered
out from under the crowd's legs
to better see the 'magnificent' podium..
The oldest of which, ran back to trenches
trying to describe what they saw.
Two of the quiet, unassuming-ones
made their way back to the podium,
and in blocking out the orator's voice,
(which to the knowing,
was as that of a clanging bell..)
Now observed up close, the inner-workings
of the elaborate podium
and sat in wonder of its expenditures--
wrapped around such slipshod, weak
and hastily assembled framework..
And in having become interested in the
structure's groundedness to what one
would hope would be a solid-built
foundation, placed onto solid, earthen ground
They instead gasped as they saw its
legs floating upon nothing..
*"What the **** is holding this thing up..?"*
War-trained and battle-hardened,
they remembered their superiors speaking
in hushed tones that even ****** with all
of his blowhard oratorical ******** at least
had a semblance of the podium's fastenings..
Albeit, partially assembled by our own country's
stupidity within certain provisions brought forth
in the Treaty of Versailles,
but this
but this;
This oratorical misleading of the broken-ones
this empty illusion of a presentation, borne
not from a suffering leading to true regeneration
but instead, a distractive short-cut into the Realms;
This counterfeit substance..
as if borne in power, as if.. as if.
.. But the realms.. they know
It is only those down here on earth, spirit
cloaked within the deceptive misgivings
of the flesh-- so aching to establish itself
apart from the necessary legwork needed
to humbly become a part of Stream's flow:
(borne, solely from the inner Wellspring-- deep
within the bowels of Love's True Ache)..
It is here.. on earth.. that you will find
the reward you seek.. oh wondrous orator,
oh magnificent 'smither' of fine words..
**Your podium, a whitewashed soapbox
floating upon nothing..**
--And therefore meaning nothing
within the Substance-Based parameters
of the Realms.
#
Mar 22, 2021
Mar 22, 2021 at 3:48 PM UTC
i rope in your lungs
with my fingers,
there is a space
between your bones
and i want to fill it,
pouring in the lines
they told me
before they left me,
one by one,
leaving you
to carry me home
your fingertips,
they are riverbeds --
they are waiting
for the moment
when i can grow gills
and swim with the words
that crowd inside your chest
when you can't find
the right ones
to say
there are stars
tattooed onto the underside
of your stomach, there are
tiny planets swimming
in your blood stream
that i wish i could
dance my fingers through
just to remind you
that there are heavens
stirring in your heart,
this heart,
it chokes with shadow
some nights, but there is
a beacon shining in your bed
that i can't wait to discover,
submerged in the wreckage
our bodies left behind
and someday,
let me stir clouds
into your eardrums
let me breathe life
into the caverns
you've forgotten existed
let me fill your skull
with salmon finding
their way upstream,
you found your way
through the stream
that flows in my wrists,
you kissed the reeds
growing in my blood cells,
and one night, you held
my jaw together
as the sickness threatened
to break through it --
you always knew
how to unlock
the fastenings
in my vertebrae,
the ones who beg
to pull me down.
if somehow
the darkness
in my throat
began to spread,
i know
you would be the first one
pleading
to be dragged
along
with it.
May 8, 2012
May 8, 2012 at 11:20 PM UTC
The shutters are rusted open on the north
kitchen window ivy has grown over
the fastenings the casements are hooked open
in the stone frame high above the river
looking out across the tops of plum trees
tangled on their steep slope branches furred
with green moss gray lichens the plums falling
through them and beyond them the ancient
walnut trees standing each alone on its
own shadow in the plowed red field full
of amber September light after so
long unattended dead boughs still hold
places of old seasons high out of the leaves
under which in the still day the first walnuts
from this last summer are starting to fall
beyond the bare limbs the river looks
motionless like the far clouds that were not
there before and will not be there again
2.1k
I
I am the undertow
Washing tides of power
Battering the pillars
Under your things of high law.
II
I am a sleepless
Slowfaring eater,
Maker of rust and rot
In your bastioned fastenings,
Caissons deep.
III
I am the Law
Older than you
And your builders proud.
I am deaf
In all days
Whether you
Say "Yes" or "No".
I am the crumbler:
To-morrow.
1.6k
One hundred years of solitude
and Marquez still couldn't shut you up,
your words tear down the walls of Macondo,
heckling the Buendías, poking fun at Aureliano
and his golden fishes. The circular history
spins to a halt, and I fold down
the corner of a page, as if closing the book
could save the city built on paper,
on the Formica tabletop
of an old café with a broken clock
A few chapters back,
you were chastising time,
saying one day you'd
crack your watch open,
rearrange the gears, twirl the dials
and steal back from the ticking hands
that steal so much from you. On page 178,
you committed abominations,
spooning sugar into espresso,
and declared your love for Dali because
the man melted time,
didn't care for anything
not molded to the back of a horse.
Cranberry scone finished,
you ruffle the newspaper,
bemoaning the stockbrokers
who grow fat and complacent
on the crumbs of seconds,
chewing chronological cud, you called it,
but you said nothing could ever pin you down,
much less some cheap Timex
on a nylon strap. Cast out of the fourth dimension,
Marquez scribbles graves for the Buendías,
in death, they've forgotten the original sin
and the Colonel forges fish
from the gold fastenings on his casket
ad infinitum.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
390
It’s coming—the postponeless Creature—
It gains the Block—and now—it gains the Door—
Chooses its latch, from all the other fastenings—
Enters—with a “You know Me—Sir”?
Simple Salute—and certain Recognition—
Bold—were it Enemy—Brief—were it friend—
Dresses each House in Crape, and Icicle—
And carries one—out of it—to God—
1.4k
(20 minute poetry)
There was Judas who knew it and went forward to do it,
betrayal is a quick zip in the fastenings of night.
Sight unseen, but we took it in good faith and the legend lives on.
John took to his toes and ended up in Panama, as far as I know he is doing quite well.
Pete looks like hell,
Thomas has his doubts and thinks he's malingering.
Mary,
********* the rosary in the garden at Gethsemane and wondering if her man will come home.
Paul's at the wall with Michael and wailing, screams tailing off with the arrival of dawn.
It all makes me wonder if life is so tragic
why are we even born?
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 7:59 AM UTC
Make shapes for me –
abandon all proclivities
neat and sterile; spill
under me. I will still
your peril. Fastenings
will not keep you bound,
so bolt! Do not stay with
me, amid my bloating
awe, while your bedlam
blooms and daybreak
looms. Sweet perfumes.
Consumption in the
dark while others only
dream. You will never
fill me but we’ll again
put out the ladder
tomorrow.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
The edges of summer’s
soak and throb routine
begin their curled leaf fraying
with the last fat spoons of clotted dreams
lashed haphazard
All those weights we foisted forward
to when wet autumn
would just **** us off anyway
rattle-threat at their fastenings
in the fractious post-tropical gales
Inertia makes it clear
why our transatlantic cousins call it fall,
but pre-echoes of crisp, clear frosts
do their best to placate anxieties
that appear to be calendared
Aug 21, 2020
Aug 21, 2020 at 2:54 PM UTC