"gnarled" poems
I’m strong, I can stand
against the buffeting winds
that try push me down.
(I’m weak, too easy I fall,
giving in to the pressure
that mounts from within.)
In the face of your discrimination,
I’m courageous
(I fear your abuse)
Yes, I am strong.
Though my gnarled hands
bend with age,
my roots…
(break, there is no
vigor left in me)
Sighing...my mind twists
that which should grow
into a solid foundation,
turning it into
(groans of pain,
mental anguish.
Weakness takes over)
A tired thought dances
through dim light,
bringing some joy
into the
(bleak. All I see are
shadows. Mocking shadows.)
Once I believed I had it,
an inner strength to deal
with anything.
(Like a mirage, my spirit
couldn’t grasp what it needed.)
Now I envision…
no, I see what I truly am.
My hands are wringing,
I’m cold...so cold.
I am
not
strong.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 12:45 PM UTC
upon the elephant rode a boy prince,
his royal command, he was there to evince.
dark with grace and dripping with youth.
bringing his men, his crown and his couth.
town after town he strode fierce through the gates.
and any detractors were left to cruel fates.
and on one windy day, as they strode into town.
the faces where tenfold and a hush passed around
the grey of the creature with knowing black eyes
swayed left towards the crowd as if to capsize.
and the mass gasped in horror; bairns seized by their mam.
men flung at young ladies, babes pulled from the pram.
the bewildered and flustered
tired elephant sat.
in the center of all on the bald pastors hat.
the old pastor looked stunned to see such a disgrace.
until he remembered, and composed his face.
'your highness' he bowed. his manners restored.
but the poor prince was toppled his mighty seat floored.
they gasped for the prince, just really a child
dressed in fine silks on this elephant wild.
pastor said, 'here now' extending an arm
hand wrinkled and gnarled from the land that he farmed.
then the guards sprung to life as if sudden awake
guns point to the man of whose life they would take.
and just as they squinted their eye for the aim
a boy sang out sweetly, 'sire he's not to blame!'
and the prince from street where he lay in pool
held up his hand and recovered his rule.
he looked at the crowd and he said 'boy now speak'
the boy said, 'prince it is the prayers that you seek.
the prayers that you'd visit. the prayers that you'd stay.
lord must of heard them and granted this way.'
his eyes wide with truth and the love of his church
the prince laughed a beautiful belly filled lurch.
the carriage was called as the prince shared a feast.
and even some water was splashed on the beast.
such a good time as he danced and he spun
till the horses arrived in the dust of a run.
to thank the town and the lovely haired boy
the young prince gave up his own precious toy.
the beast stays quite put in the center of town...
but prayers said no more...so the prince won't fall down.
sahn
04/10/2014
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 6:08 PM UTC
An old soul,
Curled up on the street.
Marks of burn,
Peeling skin,
Silent cry from the parched throat,
Agony on every turn,
Howl for food,
A sob in between,
Or was it the muscles' twist and turn?
Why did the burn,
Take just the skin,
Why didn't the heat,
Make some food,
Or give some heat,
On this cold street?!
And just then,
A passing gentleman,
In a black suit,
But without a boot,
Dropped me a drop of food,
And said, 'Look at that tree,
Burned in fire, jealousy and heat,
Soaked in rain, vain and pain,
Gnarled beyond the shadow's recognition,
Death has found him no definition,
So, you just rest in peace,
I will drop you daily,
Life in bits and pieces.'
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 4:18 AM UTC
I hear stories of an ancient land so pure.
I see photographs of bluer than blue skies
over a lake of molten gold.
I drink kahwa flavoured with almond and saffron
and add honey, sweetened by bees from the valley,
my hips swaying in a crewel work on wool skirt.
I hear songs of freedom, I know people who fled.
The muezzin prays for peace over bloodstains and tears
while children still play under walnut trees.
Clouds gather to pray at Shankaracharya Temple
on a mountain dipping its toes into water
while empty shikaras speak of visiting ghosts.
Mothers whose eyes never tire, looking over the sunset
for long lost sons; wives who still lay out their husband’s
slippers on a carpet with frayed edges.
Postmen deliver letters to addresses long abandoned;
a generation of elders, eyes of agate, gnarled fingers, brew tea
surrounded by memories of children killed, daughters *****
I write for all people who live in war.
I write for the age of innocence to return.
I write for soft rain to wash away sin.
I write for the return to reason.
I write for peace to flutter gently through groves
of apricot, almond, apple and walnut.
Feel the pain. Hear the refrain. Smell the emptiness.
This is now. This is now. This is not in the pages
of a fading history text. This is now. This is now.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 7:25 PM UTC
I saw the old man circling the tree trunk
Weather beaten skin, bent gnarled hands
and piercing blue eyes
He seemed to study every knot and crack
in that ancient timber
Then without a word turned and picked up hammer and chisel
The wood chips then began to fly and like confetti on the ground lie soon in heaps some ankle high
Occasionally he would stand back and look but never once a rest he took
Mallet strokes both hard and soft some from under some aloft fell there with unerring skill always busy never still
Long into the night he worked now by the light of an oil lamp and so the tree stump 'neath his hand then became a work of art
At long last he stood and turned to me and said three words " that'll do lad"
I approached to see just what he'd done and there I saw the perfect rose every petal and leaf in place the slender stems in the breeze did sway
With no plan or picture he had made the start
And created the perfect work of art.
So what is creativity? Well that's your next challenge.
No love poems because they've been done a million times. This time something unique
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 12:56 PM UTC
born in illusory chains
gnarled metal
encrusted in my broken skin
the copper colored dust
of rusted steel
infectiously envelopes
shaving off antiquated layers
of fundamentalist religion
encrusted for generations
unpeeled until raw
an unsophisticated method
unveiling
ancient lodged glass shards
colored with deceit
brought before their court
interrogated
unfathomably skewered
an eerie salem witch trial
in modern times
barbarically they shun me
banished
i wander aimlessly
smelling the rotten decay of deceased community
as splinters pierce my feet
from the crooked wooden plank
i walk alone now
an unfathomable inner ache
kindled a residue within
igniting a wildfire from the darkest shadows
uncontainably erupting
i dance savagely
naked in the orange moonlight
and in every shaded edge
lit my soul ablaze
i am a nomad sheep
‘tho not one of their color
no pasture to contain me
no shepherd i can follow
theological safety nets
no longer there to catch me
bohemian-like
i plunge
free falling
plummeting
stripped wide open
magically
fearlessness
reverses gravitation
floating
untethered
i soar amongst
apricot tinged clouds
my skin still wet from rebirth
and rise with the flaming coral sun
you cannot destroy me
i twisted in your decrepit pencil sharpener
and with fresh mettle
cut through the chains that bound
you can have my ego
but you cannot have my soul
dismantling domestication
transcending limitation
wildly untamed
i fly
©2016janetaylor
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 6:40 AM UTC
True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.
And so I watched my mother's hands grow scarred,
She who could heal the wounded plant or friend
With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;
I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,
But now her truth is given me to live,
As I learn for myself we must be hard
To move among the tender with an open hand,
And to stay sensitive up to the end
Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.
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--------------
Just bought a new back wheel
For my tall and sturdy bike
And riding back from a party
I got hit by a big white truck
I was cycling by the curb
A truck came zooming up
I had the space of a meter or more
But quickly the space diminished
Suddenly I felt it
A crunching of the wheel
I shouted in anglo-saxon
Wehey! As I leapt from the speeding frame
I fell into a running roll
And stood straight up and turned around
My bike was laying flat
The back wheel sadly spinning.
I wrung my hands and giggled
And looked about in awe.
The people that saw this happen
Came up and shook their heads
Are you alright? I cant believe what happened.
I didn’t catch his number plate
What a ******* crazy driver
Are you sure you are alright?
A gay irish man was there
You uttured a cry he said
And then flew from your bike
Like a… like a… a ballerina
I forced the wheel back into place
So it was was sort of fit to roll
The chain and gears were gnarled
So I couldn’t exactly ride
On the way two foreign drunks
Looked and spoke about my bike
Autobus smash, I said
Ohhhhhh they said
Finally arriving near finsbury
A man who was cycling past
Said do you need some help?
I said yes please I got run over by a truck
What I can do, said thomas from hungary
Or what we can do
Is take a length of chain out
So at least you can get home
Ok yes please I said
And he bent down and used his little tools
And got his hands all oily black
And made me a fixed gear bike
Now your bike is a fixie bike
So im afraid you cant change the gears
Like my fixie bike, he said
Thanks hungarian dude
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 8:36 PM UTC
There is a forest old as hillsides
tall, majestic, dappled shades
fall on ground beneath the silent
gnarled defenders of the glade.
There they stand in ancient splendour
many souls have passed their way
often used as welcome shelter
from the heat of summers day.
Sweet the air they breathe in chorus
our life's breath their lungs provide,
soaking up our daily poison
so that we may live and thrive.
You seas of men intent to clear them
citing progress, peddling greed
tearing roots from precious mooring
laying waste to nature's seed.
**** the beauty of a landscape
displace creatures for your need
rupture fragile ecosystems
scar the earth and watch it bleed.
To you I ask a simple question,
as I see the land bereaved.
What need has man of all this progress
when he can no longer breathe?
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 3:17 PM UTC
I saw my toes the other day.
I hadn't looked at them for months.
Indeed, they might have passed away.
And yet they were my best friends once.
When I was small, I knew them well.
I counted on them up to ten
And put them in my mouth to tell
The larger from the lesser. Then
I loved them better than my ears,
My elbows, adenoids, and heart.
But with the swelling of the years
We drifted, toes and I, apart.
Now, gnarled and pale, each said, j'accuse!--
I hid them quickly in my shoes.
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The dawn dipped red the morning light,
Calling forth thundering spring just like
An ocean of storming clouds.
It cracked the sky's black heart.
The large eye socket of Thor
Stretched in gnarled greys,
Tailored in the howling winds,
Clawing the earth in Titan strength-
Drenched the ground in flooding tears.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
we hail from synonyms
replicate those isles of dirt
jagged colossal terrains of earth
which sprouts to scrape
the wisps of pearly clouds
where marble and stone
splintered scorches of gnarled bark
where the soft paws of preying lions
roam within the sea of swaying golden grass
where each stroke of a feathered wing
flourishes the air with its mighty swing
and the threshold of mysterious beings
idle in mischief of deep blue seas
and those salty shores
swallow the iron hulk of ships
and ferocious savages of nature's call
groaning in mourn for her body
her crevasses and pools of spilling
crystal cerulean water
where the malachite moss
sits in stone of endless time
and trees groomed of wind and sun
prideful beneath the drink of the setting morrow
she yearns for the claim of her shape
for the purity of her waters like blood
her parched throat of sandy desert lands
amputated into wells of gorging oil
she suffocates from her very existence
a poison to herself
and as the days wan to a fast massacre
to her own suicidal mission
to feed our negligence
we label:
humanity
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 7:14 PM UTC
feel the wind whistle
down the tenebrous sky
come to carry away
my silenced heart
hold dear the love
you see through
my dried tears —
before the glint
doth fade
lay me down alone,
my dearest friend,
eyes to the sky
neath the lone oak tree —
atop the meadow hill
where a lonely child
climbed gnarled rungs
in hope to sail away
on fleeting cotton clouds;
dreaming of a place
in the distant sky
to call home
Jesse Stillwater ... September 21, 2018
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 11:01 AM UTC
She looks in the mirror;
Oh, how ugly! You say.
She touches her soft pink lips;
And you remind her of her ugly lies.
Ugly lies! Ugly lies!
Only trash coming from her heart.
She looks at her eyes;
Her dull, soulless eyes —
You tell her, how bland!
How flat and bleak!
It’s because of all the things
That she has seen.
She looks at her body;
You say, what an ugly mess!
You have all these fats
Placed in the wrong spots.
Why not starve yourself to death?
She turns around and looks at her back
You remind her
Of the ugly gnarled scars
And how she was backstabbed
By all that she loved
Because she is insecure
And will never be loved.
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 9:12 AM UTC
They set off from white rocks,
red geraniums, blue tile,
and let the green sea
lift and drop their ships far above the white foam waves.
The stony islands that were home
were swallowed in minutes by the hungry Atlantic
but they hunted the big fish,
the giant whales with human eyes
who rolled and sang and swam
in oceans a continent away.
They came from Sao Jorge, Sao Miguel
Faial, Pico, Terceira, Horta -
Nine island emeralds set in a black volcanic chain,
neither of the old country nor the new:
Halfway there and halfway gone -
secret jewels of the Portuguese sailors.
They sailed into unknown waters,
south around tropical shores
where dragons smoked and writhed on the rocks
and birds with brilliant red and yellow plumage
rose in clouds around their heads.
Then north, and north, north again
to colder waters
where sea lions barked and lunged
at the strange massive wooden beast
that coursed the waters,
strung with brown bodies swaying
on the lines and cursing the sails.
North still they swept
casting contemptuous eyes on
the cheap turquoise waters and monstrous slow turtles
of the Sea of Cortez.
Coming up from the desert, past the palms and the yucca,
the Joshua tree and Spanish daggers,
they chased their smooth grey prey,
riding the vast Pacific on their wooden island,
herding the leviathans onto their spears,
adventurers with an audience of only
gulls and sky and seal.
Until they sailed too close one day
to a rock-strewn shoreline
and saw the golden hills.
Gnarled oaks like grandmothers from home
with orange poppy jewels at their feet,
missions strung like beads in a ruby marked rosary.
The boats slowed, ****** in by a Scylla of soil
rich and brown and loamy
waiting to be seeded with grapes and apricots
peaches, avocados, lettuce, alfalfa,
fertile and heavy with sweet promise.
And the whales sang and the lions barked and the gulls cried
but the sailors were entranced, encharmed, ensorcelled.
The treacherous sea, the mysterious deep, the stony jewels of home,
called and wept
and waited in vain for the sailors
- beached and grounded -
cutting not waves but earth,
tracking seasons not whales,
seduced by dirt.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 9:51 PM UTC
She says she doesn’t have the strength within herself to write poetry.
Yes, her. The one who so often nourished me with song
til my soul began to learn how to hunt for itself,
whose word carried weight in leading me to pick my own instrument,
albeit one of a different tone,
as the key in keyboard became prominent for the first time
and the sound of purposeful fingers upon it could be considered,
only in the right light,
synonymous to the plucking of strings, just as rooted in emotion.
Yet she's the first to say that she herself can't do it.
Thing is, I suppose we’re politely at odds on the matter.
She favors poetry that’s sharper, with a cleaner cut,
that’s message is immediate and jarring
as a conduit running from soul through skin,
or a loose-lipped diary finally freed from lock and key.
And when she declared it, I started to consider what my poems seem to me:
Blackberry bushes (but kinder, I hope)
that snag and immerse just long enough
to make me feel I’ve had an effect.
I’ve used writing to expel my most gnarled feelings
to any passerby who’s maybe felt the same.
Like crying in a mirror:
alarming, but oddly refreshing,
and an indefinite reminder that our aches are never only our own.
Still, I'm not sure why it blows my mind
to hear that even the most glamorous hearts,
who wear confidence as a summer breeze that's always in their favor
and who inspire, from beau gestures to sleight of hand,
are included in those who find themselves pacing back, back and forth,
begging curbside at the dime store
for a scrap of the same feed that convinces a heart to pump ink.
But she says that any art that's enjoyed is worth it.
So while she seeks out words that bare the bones,
I’ll stay and make a meal of the marrow,
hollowing them so that the poetry may have a rightful place
to reverberate as hymns in a universal monastery.
But hell, like I’m any old soul.
I dress nicer than I otherwise would,
turn to the mother who told me I don’t meet her lowest standards,
and ask for a critique.
All for the moment when she greets me at the door with a legendary G#.
...Now please, could you spare a dime?
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
So I’m marrying this young girl, see,
it’s the second time round.
My first wife died and
I’ve been struggling and drowning.
So I'm clutching the life raft
of this girl who is beautiful and young,
who’s romantic and sure of her ground,
and she and her family believe
that I can breathe and survive again.
Me? Can I remember how to be gentle and kind to them?
It was luck. I was lucky before.
Because now I'm a veteran of the thousand campaigns
and I’ve bayed at the moon, see,
then I hunted with The Beast.
And anyway, my first wife and I
********* her name is Lorayne!)
suffered, and then suffocated
before our love soared so high.
Then we danced like fireflies, fabulously,
until the future ended forever.
So how can this new girl
find ecstasy with me and, and,
you know, live happily ever after,
which is such an impossible dream,
and how can I handle all this ******* purity
and innocence and beauty and youth
and flawless skin and fairy tale stuff
when I’m so gnarled
and twisted and knotted?
You see, I'm actually deeply ashamed.
In spite of my much vaunted campaigns,
I'm really a coward.
I'm afraid I can't drag myself back and do this again.
Can we possibly become fireflies and dance in the flame?
Yes, yes, I know.
We'll swear to love and to honor and to obey
in sickness and in health
in richness and in poorness
until death do us part.
Though this formula's too cute. It doesn't mention the pain.
But there's no other option. I must try to rise up again,
and alright, once more, I'll call on the flame.
So I'll cast out my demons and force them away.
Somehow, I'll hold those monsters at bay to give you
the light and the love you say
is still there, everywhere.
You are wide-eyed and oh, so naive.
But I desperately want to believe you.
I need you.
Oh god, I hope we can love without fear.
Mike T Minehan
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 10:28 PM UTC
These Gnarled Roots
Withered from time
Will forever control
Those shoots from reaching
The Shine.
Thick and stubborn
Taking everything of
Worth.
Pillaging the earth of
its fruit
All "in the name of the
Shoot".
We are told
The shoot can't be
A shoot
Without the
Root.
But what about
The "root" of
A problem?
So, little shoot
Chew on the bitter root.
Chew and
Survive.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 11:46 AM UTC
~~~
My memory of grandpa
Was that his hands were red
Showing me some pictures
A kid's book before bed.
The bones were raw and gnarled
The sinews looked all sore
The skin was thickly callused
Spotted, lined and scored.
They showed wear and tear
They echoed his toil
Grandpa was a farmer
A tiller of the soil.
Grandpa couldn't read
But we could laugh and look
His hands delicately turning
The pages of a book.
SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/12/2015
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 12:31 PM UTC
Peaches
We used to pick them fresh,
Right off the branch,
From the tree in the front yard
And place them in a basket
To take inside and taste and devour.
You’d wash them for me,
Me too tiny to reach the sink,
Then take the knife
And carve, swiftly,
Slicing off a smiling slice
For me to eat.
Now your twirled fingers
And paper skin can carve
Only lopsided smiles,
Gnarled and unfamiliar.
Let me take the knife
And dig into peaches
For you to enjoy.
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 6:51 PM UTC
Loneliness is like hunting for redwood trees
Their gnarled faces
Gritting teeth
They bite the loveliest poison
Out of all the holes your heart couldn’t fill
Sprout carnations
Sprout dahlias
All crimson petals
Blooming from the places
You wanted to be held
Loneliness is a garden
That no one tends
So you choke on the roots
Your tongue turns green
And little tendrils tickle up your throat
Looks like worms at first
But those come later
Pretty soon you’re planted
And collapsing blood red beautiful
Loneliness kills you sometimes
Turns you into a garden after you go hunting
For redwood trees
And on the brief occasions the light breaks the treetop
It shines on you
Just a few red red flowers
A little girl sees one maybe
She plucks what’s left of you
Places you in a vase
That sits on a kitchen table
Without much sunlight
Loneliness is you in a vase
Trying to be as beautiful as you can
Before your petals fall
And your stalks wilt
For a girl
Who thought you were worth taking home
Long enough to brighten up a kitchen
A few days maybe
That’s all we can hope for
Jun 28, 2012
Jun 28, 2012 at 4:10 PM UTC
It is the end of times
Sound of fate in the chimes
Up rises the living dead
Filling thoughts full of dread
Creepily moving, ominous woe
Sea of the departed, hobbling slow
Gnarled teeth, eating flesh
Craving blood warm and fresh
Waves of corpses, a lifeless tsunami
Lookout world, here comes the zombies!
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 2:23 PM UTC
Seeing you hurts
It always has
At first it was more of a ...
heart melting, eyes fluttering, body shaking
type of thing
One that you and I understood as
something to be reckoned with
Seeing you now my body becomes
gnarled in shapes that you've never seen
before
Simply so that you don't recognize the
condition I am in
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 10:41 PM UTC
You can see it already: chalks and ochers;
Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines;
Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery;
Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass;
Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape;
A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though:
A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse);
On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain
All angular--you'd think a shovel did it.
So that's the foreground. An old chapel adds
Its antique spire, and gathers alongside it
A few gnarled elms with grumpy silhouettes;
Seemingly tired of all the frisky breezes,
They carp at every gust that stirs them up.
At one side of my house a big wheelbarrow
Is rusting; and before me lies the vast
Horizon, all its notches filled with ocean blue;
***** and hens spread their gildings, and converse
Beneath my window; and the rooftop attics,
Now and then, toss me songs in dialect.
In my lane dwells a patriarchal rope-maker;
The old man makes his wheel run loud, and goes
Retrograde, hemp wreathed tightly round the midriff.
I like these waters where the wild gale scuds;
All day the country tempts me to go strolling;
The little village urchins, book in hand,
Envy me, at the schoolmaster's (my lodging),
As a big schoolboy sneaking a day off.
The air is pure, the sky smiles; there's a constant
Soft noise of children spelling things aloud.
The waters flow; a linnet flies; and I say: "Thank you!
Thank you, Almighty God!"--So, then, I live:
Peacefully, hour by hour, with little fuss, I shed
My days, and think of you, my lady fair!
I hear the children chattering; and I see, at times,
Sailing across the high seas in its pride,
Over the gables of the tranquil village,
Some winged ship which is traveling far away,
Flying across the ocean, hounded by all the winds.
Lately it slept in port beside the quay.
Nothing has kept it from the jealous sea-surge:
No tears of relatives, nor fears of wives,
Nor reefs dimly reflected in the waters,
Nor importunity of sinister birds.
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