"flinty" poems
Burnt toast and
a spot of blood.
Father dresses for work
and leaves with a wave,
his gabardine suit
the exact same shade
as the storm cloud blooming
on the back of his left hand.
After breakfast, mother pins
his undershirts to the wash line,
clothespins clenched
between broken teeth.
From my upstairs window,
I watch his shirts stiffening
in the flinty December air,
a chorus of white flags,
obsequious and clean.
Mother recovers in the laundry room,
where the floor is dusted with feeble
grains of spilled detergent.
I spend the afternoon
preparing for the sound
of tires crunching on gravel,
for the sweep of headlights
across the lawn.
There are plans
and maneuvers
to arrange.
Counterattacks.
Even now, the snow
on the side of the road
has turned to the color
of my childhood.
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 4:18 PM UTC
I felt an unusual twinge in my neck
as I turned toward you.
Heavy breathing signaled morning sleep
as my arm reached across your palpitating belly.
These casual cuddles, typical of the start of our day
emit a warmth unlike sunrays or furnace heat.
No use to wake you or tease apart your legs
for seldom do we play.
That may come after morning news is devoured,
bananas peeled and different morning hungers eased.
Now i rise to consume small pellets of brown, pink,
grey and white chemicals compounded to keep me alive.
There is a stillness downstairs with greetings from a well-worn chair
contoured to support my soul.
Blades whirl overhead churning a breeze
my face accepts upon my forehead.
Now is my time of meditation, my attempt to
listen to whatever god pervades this universe.
There will be no answers, no jolts of insight or revelations,
only small particles of peace to cover my disquiet.
You will lumber down steps with effort accentuated by creaks
and moans that are more pronounced each day.
Our lips will touch confirming both obligation and willingness
to walk beside each other.
I wonder if you think there could be more?
Could each gaze toward one another be longer?
Could I unbutton myself enough to see or would you scold me
for such an unrepressed display?
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
Grim monarch! see, depriv’d of vital breath,
A young physician in the dust of death:
Dost thou go on incessant to destroy,
Our griefs to double, and lay waste our joy?
Enough thou never yet wast known to say,
Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway:
Nor youth, nor science, not the ties of love,
Nor ought on earth thy flinty heart can move.
The friend, the spouse from his dire dart to save,
In vain we ask the sovereign of the grave.
Fair mourner, there see thy lov’d Leonard laid,
And o’er him spread the deep impervious shade.
Clos’d are his eyes, and heavy fetters keep
His senses bound in never-waking sleep,
Till time shall cease, till many a starry world
Shall fall from heav’n, in dire confusion hurl’d
Till nature in her final wreck shall lie,
And her last groan shall rend the azure sky:
Not, not till then his active soul shall claim
His body, a divine immortal frame.
But see the softly-stealing tears apace
Pursue each other down the mourner’s face;
But cease thy tears, bid ev’ry sigh depart,
And cast the load of anguish from thine heart:
From the cold shell of his great soul arise,
And look beyond, thou native of the skies;
There fix thy view, where fleeter than the wind
Thy Leonard mounts, and leaves the earth behind.
Thyself prepare to pass the vale of night
To join for ever on the hills of light:
To thine embrace this joyful spirit moves
To thee, the partner of his earthly loves;
He welcomes thee to pleasures more refin’d,
And better suited to th’ immortal mind.
2.2k
In my dreams
I am too powerful to ignore.
I've learned a thing or two there.
I've got a flinty stare
And a chip on my shoulder
Things I hide beneath a meek smile
An unimpressive little girl voice,
And an eagerness to help.
But behind these eyes
Is a creature that craves power.
My only fear is that I know I have it.
Once I tip my hand,
Once everyone sees it
What will I have?
What's my ace in the hole
If everybody knows I know I'm strong?
In my dreams
They'd be everyone else's nightmares
In my dreams
I run through rainslicked streets
Chased by gunmen
And I feel alive.
I smile, feral,
And I laugh as I fight.
I want that in my body.
I want those bruises and that sureness,
I want my power.
In my dreams when I am set upon
I think
Finally
And I give it my all with a freed laugh
And a joy too wild for waking hours.
I am too powerful to ignore.
I am too powerful to stay hidden.
When I rip off this flimsy skin and step forward
I want to be naked and smug.
But I am afraid that I will have no power
If I don't hide mine.
If it is seen
Is it lessened by the viewers?
My secret
My secret
My secret is I am not
Afraid.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 11:23 PM UTC
Try to remember
that poetry chooses
the poet and if chosen,
beware, for she
can be a real *****
and will rarely provide
a cup of coffee
much less groceries.
Do not think poetry
or fiction will supply
a living, they won't.
Plan accordingly.
Make hard work
and frugality
your floorboards.
Stay rooted.
The coasts are
foreign countries.
America is in the middle.
Nebraska is real;
LA is certainly not.
Talk with poor people
wherever you go.
They know great stories
and because they know pain
laugh more often
than the comfortable.
Find some other work
to hold onto.
Lay brick or landscape.
Write complex software.
Anything physically
or mentally exhausting.
If you are foolish
enough to introduce
yourself as a writer,
ninety-nine percent
of the people you meet
will think you mad,
stupid or simply lazy.
Garrulity marks
the mediocre. Listen.
Keep your true love
separate and secret.
Keep at least one toe
in the natural world.
Fish, hunt, pick berries.
Avoid war and commerce.
Make your poems; craft them
like the things they are,
sparse and flinty,
made of nouns and verbs.
Adjectives and adverbs
are only spices; use only
the fewest and freshest.
Modifiers are poetic;
poetry is not.
Avoid irony like
the plague it is.
Say what you mean.
Do not be disappointed
by misreadings
and misunderstandings
for consciousness
can never be fully shared.
They gets it or they don't.
Drink if you must but
remember that alcohol
is the writer's version
of black lung disease.
It will end up swallowing you.
Mostly just do your art
and try to be kind.
You are just another
sentient being
babbling into the Void.
Modesty and humility
might save you
from the angry gods
but it's no sure thing.
Although you were chosen
for this you are responsible
for your own salvation
or destruction.
*How great is the darkness
in which we *****
Remember:
you can't step into
the same river,
not even once.
If this seems altogether
too much, consider
investment banking
before it is too late.
~mce
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 6:26 PM UTC
Rooted darkly down primeval depths,
The mountain lifts its sunlit slopes skyward.
While flinty spines dive fervently downward
Between wetted walls of secret hollows.
Rain comes, springs burst forth,
The outward flow becomes a stream.
Seeds root their way through rock ribs,
Feverishly anticipating a greater life to come.
Today, deer and bear and bird range above,
Moles, foxes and ground squirrels burrow below.
Tomorrow, quakes may raise cave walls
Into sunlight and rocky peaks turn darkly sullen.
Inside, darkness and light dwell side-by-side,
Languor weds warmth and joy to abject sadness,
The living come to bury their dead,
And the mountain is simply the mountain.
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 10:23 PM UTC
by: William A. Marshall
at the age of five we are sent off
into unknown structures with flinty rooms
with kids with bad breath who smell
like their dog
and like to clown and chuck things.
we eventually lose our patent uniqueness,
within the system, its rules, and policies
that are designed to govern
and strip us plain.
the system itself could care less,
“don’t think just memorize the information kid.”
our uniqueness wilts
with each passing packet of school pictures,
clothing and status become essential
for neophytes
the offices stink
like after shave and cheap perfume in first period
each one gets a taste of honey
then the knife.
they look at their job like some kind of victory,
and their marriage
and their kids,
their lousy vinyl sided house
with the manicured lawn
like a victory to their family,
and to the world.
no one cares,
not the homeless guy in the street
not the neighbors with their friendly act,
or the precinct chairwoman asking you
if you voted as she reads your name
from her covert list,
all the victories lose their sweetness
and eventually you are stealing a few grapes
like a **** starving addict
at the supermarket
with your sore knee and shaded goggles
the victories are no longer important
and you limp to your vehicle
pushing your rusty cart,
full of soup and ***** by yourself
not remembering where you parked
the same way you came into this joint,
helpless and irritable as hell
needing something
or someone
to help you find
your identity that was taken
long ago by society,
it’s the order of things.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
Whose flinty heart
Cannot love long demonstrated
Overwhelm and macerate?
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 2:39 PM UTC
cold mist
dark wind
and stench like death's own
firstborn son
i am a shadow
laid to rest
life's long struggle
under stone
and seal of spice
then
****** heat
pulsing light
voice beyond the dark
and stony veil
calling
forth you dead.
come forth
flinty foot
faulty step
to haste, obey the call
and rise
from chained slumber
filtered light
through crossing thread
woven cloth
to wrap the dead
unbind him
set him free
...
and halted there
in frozen time
his hand
has pulled away
a strip
or two
and sight from blindness
has restored
but still
the itch and irk
of grave clothes
not unbound
i feel it all around
a finger moved
an opened eye
the breath of life
and hope to die
to wake again
broken free
of death's cocoon
forever.
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 11:45 PM UTC
In flinty eyes rest shattered dreams,
Their jagged edges goudge at heaven's seams,
While whispers speak silently in riddles.
Oh!, cries the crow as night kindles
The fodder of midnight's hearth.
Nov 9, 2010
Nov 9, 2010 at 3:07 PM UTC
Hithertofore if thou hast been by the bed-
Side of one that's betwixt life and death--
For whose state even a flinty heart bled--
Who for his dire health under his breath
Could barely speak and as Job the finest meal
Loathed for his circumstances was yonder food
And on top no pleasantness more did he feel;
Thou, meseems, in thine melancholy mood
Might this in thy heart ponder:
To the Christian and to the atheist
To the high and to the fellow low
To the worshipper and to the priest
To the fast fella and to the slow
To the fool and to the very wise
To the seeker of hell and paradise--
If you're not inured, more you'd wonder
Of such that's beyond the mercy of medicine,
Though not heaven that cleanses away man's sin--
With one destiny shall all men be met:
One birth . . . one life . . . one death.
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 1:41 AM UTC
A flinty gaze made me lose my poise so easily.
Never in life had I been such a dauntful gentleman when it came to approaching a lady I had eyes for.
I asked God for a blessing before I made a move.
She was spruced up in a Cinderella dress.
And wafts of her perfume made the romantics play in every corner of my head.
She was a fairy that blew my mind away.A lily among thorns when placed together with other ladies,one every hasty man would fall for . Suddenly the "mission impossible"track gave me that chimera of love.
I was only words away from asking her to be mine,when the sound of a bullet killed the silence.She fell laying on the floor.I screamed out loud.
Opened my eyes and it was only a nightmare.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 4:09 PM UTC
without nearly mercy the strange brawn of sinuous boughs thickly forested thoughts. wreathing simple futile furious thoughts. wearing sluggish fatty
eyes prepondered coloured and uncoloured (right in their middles) disks
flinty gristle they're black right in the median outside inside upside downside
left and right and left. my heads wearing them and more flush with nose
and just below them it's there and just below it, lips are waiting slightly
parted waiting to guzzle sickly the ruby hard cords on your face your face
is there with lips and eyes and teeth are there on your head and hair to
is coming right out the top of your head where my fingers go amongst their
limber stocks and digging slightly digging into the pale soil of your scalp
AS YOUR TOUGH STIFF HARD FUTILE LIPS ROIL OVER MY
stupid ugly soft lazy lips, over my dumb wonderful bloodied lips
Apr 17, 2011
Apr 17, 2011 at 2:00 PM UTC
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.
Dec 15, 2024
Dec 15, 2024 at 6:54 AM UTC
There is no pity in Berlin,
a place of prickly wounded pride.
A city of angels
who fell like scars of lightning
from gunmetal grey skies.
I watch old silvered rolls of film
and see flying columns of seraphim
as they march on by
row upon row
eyes ablaze
flaming swords drawn
in a parody of paradise.
They descended into hell
and are seated
at the left hand of the Kaiser:
Gott mit uns.
This sullen scene of no regret
stains the present with the dead and past:
It fits the flinty nature
of the blunt Berliner
under the ashen skies of winter.
I trudge across a gravel path
in the bowels of Berlin,
hear the grinding crunch
of brittle bones below,
and gird myself for the grim winter ahead.
Oct 13, 2024
Oct 13, 2024 at 4:42 PM UTC
High tide
May, warm sunlight, mild breeze and under
a parasol casts a cooling shade.
The hum of insect
A barking dog
White clouds on blue velvet
The peace is restless a sense of danger
the big powers have been banging on their war drums
conditioning us
we are being groomed for war
It is like psychoses, we want war now
fight for the fatherland against an enemy not defined
the noble death
The song contest in Europe has done a coup, but it
Is not enough
Two jet fighters streak across the sky they are flying low
piloted by flinty eyes.
Perhaps the coming war is a natural progression
a bloodletting that happens in regular intervals
nothing can be done like Thor's hammer it strikes
when it want to
evening now grass are asleep
the shade has become night
we can't but wait
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 3:45 AM UTC
The king of what was stands in silence
and surveys his sunsetted realm.
His spine is straight in stiff defiance
of the twilight of the kingdom he’d helmed.
On a plastered pedestal high he stands
surrounded by the waste of his times.
Carved into it, once acclaimed in his lands,
was his name, now covered by vines.
The pale sheen of low sun as winter nears
casts shadows across his etched face.
Its grooves grow deeper year after year —
he’s the gnomon whose shade this sundial has traced.
He takes no note of the thorny brambles
that have entangled his fixed stony feet.
With flinty gaze and wrapped in a mantle
of granite, he keeps watch through storms and sleet.
Now stripped of his titles and even his name,
the proud king of the ruin’s still there.
For while the long night has broken his fame,
still he stands, marked by his unbroken stare.
Nov 18, 2024
Nov 18, 2024 at 6:58 AM UTC
We are on the road, deprived of lights, with minds to traverse
Lanes frozen by winter dark, with stormy gales to temper
Devoid of warnings, with many hurdles to contend
In clusters, we tread upon these flinty tracks
Myriad of flames ascend, every being with a fire to bear
Though halts may arise, we keep on moving
Brushes and thorns lies ahead, Yet we push on
An army of young and old sliding on a journey
Bereft of grasp, winds of time steer each mortal
Battered by the tempest, blissful drips of rain rip through
Still Soaked in heavenly drops, sights of a rainbow ensued
Blurred visions are made clear, moments to cherish, never to render
Though tendered by these cold paths, we soar to overcome
In strive we move away from bedlam, amidst cheers, El Dorado beckons
Without grudges, we embrace each other.
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 1:15 AM UTC
jocular hack of a day
sideways and flinty with snow
the winds dictate the true streets of this city
turbine life outside is in retreat or insurance
sing in the sunny pleasure
let the weather match celebration
beast of spring forgive
our lustless plunder and dumbing
quake us from our numb standard
ferry us
Apr 21, 2025
Apr 21, 2025 at 9:24 PM UTC
Hello, old Self
I know you
When the dullness of your ache
Fell away from you
Like an opened cotton curtain
Letting in the light
And your misery
Fizzled out
In the busy dizziness
Dazzling,
Blinding,
Bright...
You slipped away;
(Maybe like me
At a people-peppered party
When the echo
of my own obliging cheer
Grows hollow in my weary ears
And it comes quick and clear
You know?
—no one will really care
Who chatters, or in what chair
Exchange my face
For any stranger there
They wouldn’t know
To
Miss
Me
...)
What am I for?
You were not made
To walk
Without a wound
Your new surroundings
Puzzled you
And so you smiled
And slyly slipped
Secretly
To the side
I did not see you
For such a long long time...
Hello, old Self
Now that you arrived
With your silent ache
And the stony set
Of your flinty face,
I miss you
Backwards
For all the lost days
You were me once
I would know you
Anywhere...
Your scars
Are still the same
Come in and sit
We will be quiet
And we will hurt
Together
Jun 22, 2020
Jun 22, 2020 at 3:44 PM UTC