"footstool" poems
If I knew who I’d be
by the last written line of this poem.
If I knew who’d sway, besotted, beside me
to lean in and catch the last word
of our maundering sobhet;
If this, I’d never have left
my Beloved's company to begin with.
I crawled wild-eyed from the depths
of the inexplicable,
cold embers of abandoned age,
To go there.
To go to the tip
where the flame flickers
and breath burns.
The Beloved is the earth,
my awareness, roots.
If this,
then love is the water
flowing through the rock,
drawn up the vine
to fatten the grape.
This drunken dance
is a fruit harvest
We fools are the wine makers.
Who gets who intoxicated?
Bestami Bayazid said,
*"I am the wine drinker and the wine and the cupbearer
I came for from Bayazid-ness as a snake from its skin.
Then I looked and saw that lover and beloved are one
I was the smith of my own self.
I am the throne and the footstool.
Your obedience to me greater than my obedience to you
I am the well-preserved tablet.
I saw the Kaaba walking around me."*
I say, I arrived in this place two sunsets back
but I did not have to travel to get here.
The earth makes its way around the sun on my behalf.
My journey is both a somber desert
and a purling rain forest
It is my pause that makes one or the other so.
A hungry sparrow hops cautiously through bread crumbs
strewn around a fat loaf of bread.
The feast is on the table, our hands in our pockets,
our mouths sealed shut,
bellies full of hesitation, we circle the spread.
Empty are the stores of those who
Cannot sate their hunger for truth.
The empty belly of a sparrow
sees the universe in a morsel of bread
So of what use is the whole loaf.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 8:57 AM UTC
Shakespeare’s Dog
in the theater tonight, the notion of a poem-potion
courtesy of Shakespeare's dog came unbidden
So when home arrived, was unsurprised that this
very peculiar pug was farting before my own front door.
get lost, I announced got what I need from your boss,
but before I could kick him across the floor,
the pug spake thusly:
*this dog knows the boot too well,
it is parcel of this dog's life of no quality,
but if you give me shelter tonite, I will provide,
share some of Speare's un-Published Works
and you can claim it as your own!*
kicked that dog across the room,
(having pity earlier I let him in and enter)
told Jim, (that’s what I called him)
he can stay the night, or long as the sun rises up
and goes down unbidden, but, if I ever
caught him plagiarizing, selling sonnets on the side,
I would report him to the ASPCA and the Poet’s Union.
The American Society for the Poets of Conscience Alive -
might have his low hanging ***** cut off in retribution.
he laughed out loud, rhyming funny, pontificating:
*well mate,
thanks for the soliloquy,
me ***** long time gone,
but what I know and what I’ve seen
if tale-told you, and you were to listen,
you would keep me around as fodder
for your artistic soul.
in return chappie,
you need only provide me a rug, a fire,
A/C for the languid summer eves,
fodder for me body, and your boots,
far removed from my hindquarters.*
We spoke much thereafter,
turns out he served his poet-masters
in many ways, more than a mere footstool.
his snoring keeps me awake some twenty years later.
his love for country music makes me put him on nice days,
outdoors, his headphones securely strapped round his double chins.
ugh that pug. became my best becoming love, old friend,
one of us will pass someday and an elegy composition,
the other devotee will furnish sadness utterly becoming.
so if a farting pug before your door you’ve found,
take him in, give him water, an amply supply please
of Carrie, Trisha and Chaplin-Carpenter for his immortal soul,
but beware, he might try to sell you
some of my words, as your own.
Mar 26, 2018
Mar 26, 2018 at 1:31 PM UTC
Howe's Final version
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His Truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His Day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
'As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.'
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his ***** that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
2. Howe's First Manuscript Version
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He is trampling out the wine press, where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of his terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on.
I have seen him in the watchfires of an hundred circling camps
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.
I have read a burning Gospel writ in fiery rows of steel,
As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal
Let the hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Our God is marching on.
He has sounded out the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He has waked the earth's dull sorrow with a high ecstatic beat,
Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet
Our God is marching on.
In the whiteness of the lilies he was born across the sea
With a glory in his ***** that shines out on you and me,
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
Our God is marching on.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave
He is wisdom to the mighty, he is sucour to the brave
So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave
Our God is marching on.
2.6k
Tribal maternal's terrace
***** by carnivorous shipmen
Earth over ran
By Marxist's and ditty wit's!!!
Hold thine lingo
Release thy spit
Oh vertebrate of underworld grief...
Tend to thine flock
Cut thine beef,
As in the cattle thou hath becometh...
For the serum doth runneth
Wherein thine swords becameth thy first choice....
Where is thy voice?
God of technology
Made science thy hobby
Made gentlewoman thy footstool......
As thou hath runneth a muck
And made thy queen thy second elect!!!!
For I just bet
That thineself shalt lose to all thy debts....
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
I am cage fights with boys and girls alike
I am splintered hardwood floors
kneeling/crawling/hard working
indoor/outdoor
day/night.
I am balled fists
Open palms
I am Chains and
a footstool timbered from my back.
A rent boy with vices
I am violence/dicord/visceral
Bloodied and mean.
A machine built of sinew
made for binding/unbinding
lashing and flogging
I am a service receptacle
a boy built of honour
of instinctual intellect
of bruises and bandages
i am cut and torn
roped and worn.
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:20 AM UTC
the world is just starting to seem real
clay in a firmer state
studier but harder to mold
and i am still trying to shape it in my hands
without getting it under my nails
... something,
something under my nails
clambering for something to hold onto
anxiety racing, scratching, life catching up to me
why am i bleeding
why am i bleeding
this is supposed to be freeing
i guess i just
pick one of these lines
deeply clawed into my skin
paths like addict,
wash up,
footstool;
lives carefully planned for me since birth
i played trumpet in junior high
so that must mean i'll be a paralegal like my mama
regretting my love choices
regretting my life choices
wasting away at a job i hate
doing work i don't get credit for
destined to fade away lonely
but then again i've got my dad's bad habits
and twice his screaming spirit
so maybe i'll spend half my life in a bottle
and the other half trying to chase the dreams that i ****** away in my twenties
maybe i'll run all over creation
trying to be something bigger
someone stronger
yeah
that sounds about right
Apr 3, 2017
Apr 3, 2017 at 12:26 AM UTC
all things green are not created equal,
what brings mean hearts a revival,
the green that some die for,
the green the mint strives for,
there are no green initiatives, only a green economy
there is no interest, that will starve the old, their bank
cupboards bare, soon they will eat their own flesh.
they ayes may have it everywhere so be aware, watch your step there
the green that binds our hands,
binds our feet, binds our minds,
bind us together in defeat.
this may sound like a call but really it is one voice with a bad echo,
bouncing off the walls of misappropriation and missed understandings
stewardship is taking care of what was given, (not earned)
he who made stewards of us is going to call (out our names)
to find what we did with the Terra entrusted with us (what a rush)
embracing the wrong green blinds us as it binds us to a rocky
spire, that double edge blade hacking at the legs of God's footstool.
the light talk about saving a planet, ****** Janet, what fool's
we have been, we blame colour blindness for corporate greed,
oh the
green that bind us
to every wrong to which we own,
will now cost us the best spot closest to the throne.
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
My soul saunters in a separate way,
yet and gone,
Way into the wilderness,
where my heart always hunts;
Seeking for a Footstool,
for my maimed feet of my childhood,
Upon falling into the cold fire of wrath;
I misconstrued.
My soul saunters in a separate way,
yet and gone,
Distance may alter me,
but of becoming empty and alone;
Be home after that Spirit of Forgiveness
will be regained,
The war has left my mind,
but I could not still find the ending.
My soul saunters in a separate way,
yet and gone,
I pray. I call for Jesus for saving me
from this poignant Poison;
His amazing grace will evermore
stand against all the waves,
My soul saunters in a separate way,
upon leaving my destined grave.
Aug 22, 2012
Aug 22, 2012 at 6:15 AM UTC
The Roman empire has fallen
sadness weeps bitter tears
how the mighty became poor old waif
and the west held their jamboree without ignominy
For once they were carried on shoulders in sedan trains
in pomp and ceremony the masters sought safaris and ruled lions
from Goa to Timbuktu the whiff of toast on marmalade n Darjeeling
jackboots and clipped voices rang in plantations n hymns in churches
The Roman empire has fallen
Tea two anti-depressants please
Oh no no how have the mighty fallen
unwanted unloved we cry diminished glory
no invites to Continental parties no lovers in Casablanca
the dusky maidens as footstool are Doctors at the corner Surgery
those hunky dark torsos ferrying cocoa to steamers heading Cardiff
are now earning two hundred thousand grand a week and drive Rolls
The Roman empire has fallen
now we just drink Bitter all the time
the mighty s of the universe are now *******
come see the bullies in the school playground playing the Raj
let me show you a place where four in ten cannot spell enterprising
did you know when not in the Tropics some go for weeks un-bathed
shock and awe jealousy n envy is the new black making them so mad
old n young no self respect, no dignity and now only sad mad bullies
Jun 6, 2019
Jun 6, 2019 at 4:29 AM UTC
4/12/2016
"*Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vîmes, mon âme,
Ce beau matin d'été si doux:
Au détour d'un sentier une charogne infâme
Sur un lit semé de cailloux?"
"My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path, a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed?*"
Charles Baudelaire
I sat on the mossy footstool
that lied by the brook-
I had to really open my ears
to hear the soft regurgitation
coming from the clear muddy water, gliding over the slate,
piled up
the road, the one I drove on that one day we snuck out,
was placed gently beside it,
uptop a little cliff,
I felt this a beatific metaphor.
The air felt amorphous,
held a quality I couldn't quite
put my finger on.
and then I saw a tree,
a crooked one
who had seemed to grow
on the bank of the creek
because life, it seems, imitates art.
Its trunk dipped
until it ever so slightly grazed the water
its elm fingers
almost
almost.
I smiled when I saw this,
for it gave me hope.
I likened myself to the horseflies and new
tadpoles that flittered,
seraphic in quality,
borne with the quality of new life- the innocent quality
the one that just made me feel tainted, the more I surrounded myself with it.
The Friday afternoons on the avenue, with its port wine air
and this bubbling black slate brook
are the only places
that innocence lives-
if I had realized how quiet
the soft gargling of the cherub water was
I'd have stopped the car
and baptized ourselves
In it.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 3:31 PM UTC
“We make our meek adjustments,
Contented with such random consolations
As the wind deposits in slithered and too ample pockets.”
Hart Crane, “Chaplinesque”
A footstool in the desert.
A napkin in the netherworld.
A coffee stain in the margin.
Perfumed remains.
Systematic garnish.
Dorothy Stratten climbing Mt. Suribachi.
My late father’s toenail clippers.
Pale clouds over Slauson Avenue on the day after the L.A. riots.
A rhetoric of purpose.
A philosophy of decay.
A poem written to an audience of one.
©David Adamson 2015
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 8:33 PM UTC
The heavens is your throne
The earth your footstool
Earthlings you molded
From clay and then ribs
You gave us some of your air and the right to breath
All I have belongs to you
From my lovely nose to the marrow in my bones
All these you own
So why do I keep getting your attention?
Why do you even care or bother to take away my fears?
What can I offer you when you have it all?
I know what's right and hear my spirit cautioning just when I decide to do wrong
I push you away
and when I do your absence creates a presence about me
A presence that takes over
whenever I refuse to listen to the voice of my conscience
I try to hide
In my folly I feel wise
Forgetting you are omnipresent.
How beautifully have you painted the rainbows!
You landscaped the earth with the flowers and tall trees
The wild geese and birds you never fail to feed
You whose hands are stretched out towards the earth
On Whose palms I sit
Please don't turn your back against me
It’s your face I seek
I have failed you once again
all my promises to you I am too human to keep
Forgive me Lord
I fail to mirror your attributes though a spitting image of you I am
Please let Momma and Papa tarry
If only till three score and ten
Let them relish for tirelessly they’ve toiled
fill their hearts with foy as their third generation in the arms they carry
You asked that I ask
Cause you are equal and more so greater than the task
One more thing I ask of you
when they you call unto thee
That their exit be as they wish
Most peacefully as they bid your footstool goodbye
You know all things and even before the world begun
It was powerless to hide its end from you
You don’t only know the end from the beginning;
You are the beginning and the end
to my humble plea I beseech you, your precious ears do lend
~r3d~
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 4:18 AM UTC
I put the shoebox to my ear and hear nothing. I give it a shake. in it, my stepfather curses and I breathe closer to my quota a sigh of relief. I place the box on a higher shelf where I plan to leave it for three years. five years pass and I mean that. I can no longer reach the shelf and need a footstool or something similar. I stirrup my hands and there they are suspended. I step back from them. a cat meows or my stepfather sobs. I am bogged down. I am under my mother’s heart. when I finally use my hands in the manner I’ve meant, my fingers break and I land on my back. the box falls and the corner of it finds the cup of my stunned and still suspended hands and the fingers hold for a moment and then they are weak and then they feather the box sideways to my chest. I lift my head and see my stepfather jolly to be on the set of a show he’s the star of. he is smoking a prop pipe and pretending to read a book I remember my mother being buried in. a few episodes into it I realize the show is missing something and so supply grief.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 2:12 AM UTC
I sat on my hard, green footstool, still, in my grandma's front room, musing over the warm madeira crumbs on my blue-veined white plate.
I climbed up onto my granddad's chair, as familiar as the aroma of his St. Bruno flakes, infused into the dark promise of his worn, warm desk, impatient for his return.
I'm waiting still.
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 7:26 AM UTC
The LORD Reigns, let thy Kinds Tremble! He Dwells between the Cherubim, let thy EARTH Be Moved.! The LORD Is Great In Zion, and HE Is High Above All the Peoples. Let hem Praise Your Great and Awesome Name-- He Is Holy! The King's Strength also Loves Justice: You have Established Equity, You have Executed Justice and Righteousness In Jacob. Exalt thy LORD Our GOD, and Worship At His Footstool--- He Is Holy.! Moses and Aaron were among His Priests, and Samuel was among those who called upon HIS Name, they called upon the LORD, and HE Answered them.. HE Spoke to them in the Cloudy Pillar, they kept His Testimonies and the Ordinance He gave them.. You answered them, O LORD Our GOD. You were to them GOD-Who-Forgives, though You Look Vengeance on their Deeds.. Exalt the LORD Our GOD, and Worship at His Holy Hill; For thy LORD Our GOD Is Holy.!
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 3:16 AM UTC
"Tomorrow morning, that footstool goes!"
And I'm left to listen to my own voice's echo,
As it bounced back off half-painted walls
And round corners without the skirting-
Next weekend's promise still etched in pencil.
But faded past the point of a stranger's notice,
And even your mother has stopped commenting,
On the second landing's crooked light fixing.
I must have asked you a hundred times before,
To throw out that footstool in the hallway.
Bought at some junk shop, three streets away,
And just awkward enough, so that I stub my toe,
Every single time I walk through the dam door!
The same door you painted pink to annoy John,
Next door's tenant with a grey tweed suit,
And a hate for anything even mildly creative!
God he hated you! With a passion unmatched.
At least he did-
Last week he said how he'd admired you.
He said that you artwork was unparalleled!
You would have snorted in his face,
And asked him "what else you would expect?
You were a genius with a paintbrush after all!"
I just nodded and smiled.
You always said I was too polite to others.
That footstool you put in the hallway...
I try, but I can never throw it out.
Unlike the ashes, those I-
Your mother has them. Above her mantle piece.
She wanted a way to keep you close,
One that would match her interior design.
And I wanted that horrible urn out of the house.
You exist more in a footstool than an urn.
Though your mother wouldn't agree on my thought.
She never did appreciate your...
I think she referred to it as 'taste'-
Though some of those conversations are lost.
Like I said, she's stopped about the light fitting,
I'm hoping she'll leave the skirting alone soon.
Apparently I'm foolish to leave things in this state.
"No one wants a house half finished."
She seems to forget that I still live here,
And there are memories I refuse to erase.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 6:27 AM UTC
Conflicted:
I.Watching this life as the years go by, knowing I'm just a man of bones and flesh can't do much to keep these conflicted thoughts at rest,
II.People so quick to judge about my mistakes I made long ago, the past is past but can't stay in the back, gets thrown in my face like hurtful words that hit ya fast,
III.Haters gonna hate about the **** they've never been through, given an easy life they don't know what the **** I've been through, I'm not perfect **** I make my mistakes, takes a real ****** person to admit this **** straight,
IV.The goodness in me trying to maintain humanity and hope for the shallow world of fools without hope sitting in their high pious seat of glory and money at heart they're all just miserable ***** worse off than me, even broke and a joke to em all, ha they'll eat those stupid *** words,
Conflicted thoughts, two sides to a coin, playing with the ying and yang of life, sometimes I say why Lord why? Why can't you just remove me from the pain of this life? My soul is slowly withering away from the struggles I go through day by day, the hate in me is starting to develop, bitterness setting in this is the truth of being afflicted with conflictions,
V. Even through this all I'm pushing past the **** I hear and see, learned that words can hurt but so can my logic, all these fools are just my enemies as a footstool beneath me, guess what I'm back up from the restraints of life and pain, on my path to greatness and glory, not a person of pride and not of worry. Guess what your ******** won't hurt me...™
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 2:24 PM UTC
Dear......
Allow my blessings from you,
to get others through.
Instruct my hand,
to do all that it can.
Take my flesh here,
and use it as a gear.
Direct my thinking,
to help others from sinking.
Use me as a tool,
allow me to be your footstool.
Use me on earth,
for all that I am worth.
S.D.P
Dec 24, 2010
Dec 24, 2010 at 6:52 PM UTC
CLOUDNINE'S TWENTY SEVEN PSALM OF DOXOLOGY TO ADORE THY LORD GAD!
#C9fm ~~
1 Make holy his glorious name and adore His powerful word.
2 Sing praises unto thee. And let every breathing creatures tremble at His footstool.
3 The Earth and everythang found therein. Lift on high His glorification and sing adoration unto the supreme Spirit of thy Lord.
4 Hallelujah! Thy Lord reingth till eternal.
5 From all entities through entities.
6 For He has magnified Himself and manifested Himself through every wondrous works of His hands.
7 Ruler of the universe, His glorious crafts exists even beyond the miltiverse.
8 Underneath Earth and above the skies may thy Almighty God be adored.
∆¶∆9 His right hand through seas His breathe roared the waters.
10 His voice quake the Earth and the foundation of the universe wary.
11
He looked and lightening from His eyes revealed the secret place of the wicked.
12 Let thy Lord be praised. He has smitten the jaws of His enemies.
13 Even Lucifer and his angels.
14 Thy Lord reignth till eternal.
15 Blessed be thy Lord our Gad; with psalms and doxologies thy Lord be worshipped. Selah!
Jun 27, 2022
Jun 27, 2022 at 10:24 AM UTC
The heat of the laptop seeps through the Israeli pillow on my lap
My life on hold for the last few weeks, now about to be completely gone
for this last week
I'm a performing idiot for authorities I cannot see
participating in this hot steaming mess in the company
of little picture icons of other "students"
I didn't have to move yet to take these classes
which is good, since they started before my job ended
but I am living an isolated farce, of pressure coming through my wi fi
is it real? the quiet, sweaty summer, my plans shelved for now
all fun awaits as I read, read, write in little responses in little boxes and have
take some video, upload to little boxes and
the unimaginable happened yesterday, my wifi was down
so I called and looked and sweated and finally took sleeping pills
hoping tomorrow the laptop on the footstool would come to life
and it did, so the process continues
reading, sweating
little boxes of information returned to me
How I long to just meet these people, once, in a room
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
diabetic
and losing
a leg
hopeless romantic
and breaking
a heart
maiden by the footstool
crying and mending
a sweet sweet affair
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
Most of you actin like you know who I am
But this Jew's been running ****
since before you began
That's right I ran, th-is real
I'm a Son of Man, I've got His plan
To set fire to the field
Burn the chaff, watch and laugh
(Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha)
As He saves the other half from His untimely wrath
You think your Ego can beat this wheat
"Get up and Go"
He will use you as a footstool after your defeat
The lake of fire is your destined seat.
So take a receipt for your life,
And the strife, don't forget your wife
Any sins against her, He'll be sure you burn.
(Huh)
It's Your Turn,
Run the Jews
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 1:35 AM UTC
I sat on my footstool,
In my grandma's front room,
Staring at the warm madeira crumbs
On my blue white plate.
I climbed onto my granddad's chair
As familiar to my eight years
As the flakes of his St. Bruno.
And I was found there,
Next to the smiling promise
Of his dark desk,
Waiting for his return.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 9:52 AM UTC
As a flower emerges from the ground,
That was kissed by frozen snow.
A seed that was sown by God's own hand,
Just waiting for Spring to grow.
For, a Monarch evolves from a lowly worm,
It's beauty, a sight to behold.
That graces the air, for all to see,
More precious than silver or gold.
Freedom springs from rusty chains,
That bind, with malicious intent.
To suffocate a way of life,
Never in the way that God meant.
God never meant for the world to be,
His footstool of war and strife.
But, a place of peace, for all to share,
Treasuring His precious gift of life.
But, Mankind's greed and powerlust,
Have made Earth hard to cope.
It's humanity's turn to stem this tide,
To survive, we all must harbor hope.
These are just of few of the things,
Some rise from beginnings of violence.
For, hope is even in the bloodiest war,
A baby's cry, emerges from the silence.
Nov 29, 2011
Nov 29, 2011 at 6:41 AM UTC