"graveled" poems
In the land of the practical
There lived an ornamental
A desert rose.
A farmers wife
Planted her
To break up
The graveled nap
Of gray caliche
And from the time
She pushed her first shoot up
She knew she
Didn’t look like
The other plants.
The land could not
Be farmed
There was no oil
So the farmer and his wife
Moved On
Leaving the rose alone
Amongst the desert cabbage
And the other wild succulents.
At first she tried
To blend
Curl her velvety leaves
Into a cabbage
Fodder
For the desert fauna
But the animals avoided her
Because she looked odd.
They worried that she was poisonous
So she crawled back
Underground.
But still she longed
For light on her face
So she stuck another shoot up
Conserving all her energy
For her stems
She didn't want to frighten anyone
But her stems grew thick and woodsy
Like a thorny fig vine
And after a hiker
Cut his leg
She curled up
And crawled underground.
Years passed
Until she was as frozen
As the ground
Then one day
She sensed movement
Above her.
She pushed a shoot up
And standing above her
Smiling
Was a young woman
- There you are
The woman cried
- Why are you hiding away
My grandmother told me
All About you.
You were the one bright spot
Of color in her garden
She could smell your perfume
From her window
And it reminded her that
Beauty could survive
Even in such
A drab place.
And the rose blossomed.
Jan 17, 2010
Jan 17, 2010 at 1:14 PM UTC
As a teenage boy I used to fall asleep at night
listening to the graveled voice of Ernie Harwell
fashion for me word-images of the exploits
by a band of superheroes called the Detroit Tigers.
In those semi-lucid moments before slumber,
I could see the shimmering outline of my destiny:
you see all American boys are meant to be Tigers.
So imagine my confusion, when I fractured
the right talus bone my Junior year of high school,
even putting on weight around the middle,
where no athlete worth his pin stripes would gain.
My karma had begun to take on mass.
I began to acquire knowledge, as the only perceived defense
against some parallel universe impinging upon reality.
Oh, I had everyone convinced, even my keenest teachers
believed I was destined to make my mark in scholarly pursuits.
But no one saw the crying ego of one meant to be a Tiger,
nor how that bottled up the emergence of the Man.
Never reconciled, the Man curled up in fetal dormancy.
Lifespan became synonymous with interstellar drift.
And every encountered star of knowlege was dwarfed,
having long ago collapsed of its own gravity.
Still the heavens of knowledge are auspicious,
so I looked outward, when all the answers lay concealed within.
Only as my life left the outskirts of occluded reality
did I then begin to inherit from my instinctual id,
begin to listen to disconsolate internal voices,
who had known me all along, perhaps better than myself.
The thing is ... the stage has long been set on middle-age,
what props lie about are encrusted with patina,
laden with a dust impossible to gauge or preempt,
made worse by the lack of cast, save one.
Neither Beckett, nor Pinter, could have absurded this.
So, when my acts strike you as quixotic,
when I cut with a penknife through propriety,
it's because I finally remember what it meant to be a Tiger.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 7:15 PM UTC
From the backbroken fliers over oceans
From between the spiny frills along palm fronds
From Mr. Happy, the chain smoking chaperone of good times
From Mr. Happy’s half-burnt **** coiled in the ashtray
From the disciples of Theravada and the skinny Buddha’s pupilless eyes scanning jocose scansions of jungle
From the tanned holy heads of students lounging in graveled football fields
From my bowl of rice at breakfast in the shade while considering western cities, you are not here
‘You are not here,’ I’ve written in my letters
‘You are not here,’ I’ve typed into e-mails immense
You are not here, my coke head pals locked in the veins of seedy nightmares
You are not here, my penniless friends who mix music in ascetic dark rooms out in Bushwick
You are not here in no eastern Central Park running naked in the night from horseback cops after hours of merciless balling in the bushes
You are not here you fair-skinned beauties in crowded alpine funiculars bearing your aquiline noses holding your hats over the mountains
You are not here my lonely mother waiting by the phone for a call at midnight
You are not here, you are not in my poems, you are not in the distorted notes harpsichorded across my crass imagination
You are not here, you will not be here, will you read my letters home?
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 6:58 AM UTC
Of the items in the store,
All were second hand
An old computer did I buy,
With a broken stand
One side was badly scratched
Two knobs were missing too
But that’s not the story
I’m about to tell to you
T’was about the second week
Of the ‘puter at my place
Sitting there against the wall
Near the old staircase
I recall the night was late
As I readied me for bed
When I turned the ‘puter off,
The screen … it turned blood-red
The appearance caused a start
I gasped a breath of air
I couldn’t turn my gaze away
I stood right there and stared.
Then a low murmuring
From deep within the set
Cold chills ran over me
I’ve not forgotten yet
A voice, low and menacing
Containing graveled rasps
I could not then stop again
My involuntary gasp
I stood there mesmerized
My gaze remained transfixed
Thoughts racing through me
And all of them were mixed
The Voice on the other side
Of the blood-red display screen
Issued a command to me
So ominous and mean:
“Place your hand upon the screen
And repeat these words to me:
Where you are right now,
Is where I need to be.”
I felt my arm move upward
Powerless to resist
I felt a burning in my palm
As the display screen it kissed
I heard a voice and realized
The speaker it was me:
“Where you are right now,
Is where I need to be.”
As the words transmitted,
Involuntarily,
I could feel a change come on …
Overwhelming me.
As I stared in disbelief
My hand – it disappeared
Absorbed into the blood-red screen
As the burning onward seared …
Through my wrist, up my arm
It’s hotness I could feel
Inward was I screaming
Not believing this was real!
In reflection from the screen
I was being pulled into
I saw a face, and then I screamed:
“That horrid face is YOU!”
The rapid assimilation
Continued then until
All feelings were extinguished
And all was calm and still.
A trillion beings there transformed
To tiny bytes and bits
And ‘tis every part of us
All websites now transmits
Now here I am deep inside
This computers’ display screen
If there’s disturbance felt
Oh so sharp and keen
Just place your hand upon the screen
And read these words to me:
“Where you are right now,
Is where I need to be.”
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 7:30 AM UTC
I stood before the town folk, who were all revved up, in gear,
" I'm laying claim to 'Yonder Road', which leads to my lot there".
And as I spoke, I found my voice~ "And I, G Clair, it is my choice
to take it back" and dared the few, who looked me in the eye, and knew
they'd met their match but here's the catch,
I took it straight, right down the hatch...
The road's not mine to take.
"We must decline. It's on the line, the Powell Township County Line"
~So half of it is theirs to sell? And so I'm thinking "What the hell?"
I never planned to buy the land, which leads up to my pile of sand,
and half a road? That's just a load of cock-a-mamey crap and toad!
Not one spoke on my behalf, that half-a-road was just a laugh,
but secretly I knew their game, to share the road, and to their shame,
I'd have to buy the township out, if private is, what it's about.
And so I kept my peace of mind. "I'll pay for Yonder, rob me blind!"
"And all in favor, just say 'Aye'" The room went silent. Then a cry~
from down behind the furthest row, an "Aye" and then the rest in tow
and everyone you would have thought, would die before the road was bought
and on that day, the vote was wrought, and ALL for one road to my lot.
the road was mine to take!
And as I drove on down my road, I wondered, if it ever snowed,
if they'd still plow a private road, or leave it to the one who owed
the price of owning graveled lane, which cut in two, by grassy mane
and wondered if I'd have to mow the place which pulled like undertow~
which drew the settlers through the plain, where nothing grows in fitful rain
yet wagons, traveling there in vain, would lose a wheel, and what a pain
and one last thought to keep me sane:
Those drivers who had lots to gain
whose hearts were heavy, just the same
from weary rolling over rocks
in untilled pastures, void of flocks
who held the reigns in calloused hands
and prayed while sweat dripped from their glands
to make it to their promised lands,
would LOVE... a road... like mine.
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 9:30 AM UTC
Up
The tree of the sweetsop
I see
Raindrops
Sliding down...to the leaves
Of the Fortune tree
Drip-dropping,
Straight falling
Splashing
Down
The
Graveled garden
From up
The tree of the sweetsop
There's rain,
Dropping now on my hands
We are connecting
Feeling
The union of
Cold and warm
Tears from the sky touching my skin
Never, never to be lukewarm
Towards
A presence-
And in its absence
Persists a longing.
Crystal, silvery droplets
I try to capture inside my palms
I would drink them, if possible
Make them stay in my system
Never to depart from me
As long as i can,
Lest they drop and be
Scattered
Disintegrate
Like molecules
On the
Graveled garden.
Sally
Copyright September 10, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 9:02 PM UTC
Dog days fly dust to dust over a hick
pit sardined between corona bikinis that house
the unmistakable stench of lukewarm apple
sauce in the c-cup padding and toothless
******** sitting indian style. Graveled friction
fading the back pockets of their overall
dungarees. Amongst them a settler on their native
turf accepting a Jim Beam peace pipe while above
the influence commercials march in protest claiming fried
egg consequences from engaging in the act. The culture
shock is worth the weekly once-in-a-lifetime chance
to sip the tabasco-glazed opening of my chemistry
teacher’s flask while he schools me in perfecting
the cotton eyed joe. A muffler spontaneously
combusts, melting the raybans off the face of a tragically
hip spectator taunted with “that’s why dad named you Joe Dirt.”
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011 at 11:44 PM UTC
silhouettes above my head
hold me down like paperweight,
the earth crumbles beneath me
and separates into quaking plates;
a toxic air instigates choking breaths
along my gasping throat that strains,
I am graveled as I contemplate
what my path is when I graduate.
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 9:33 AM UTC
I'm in my eighth month of this journey
There have been highs and plunging lows
Many a word has been on the gurney
I've seen poets come and poets go
It was a sixties' high to have readers
For people to comment and like my words
My advice heeders and some needers
Meaningful relationships soon occurred
It has been a place where I've laughed and cried
A world of birthdays and sweet victories
A painful universe, euphoria died
Poets passed, nothing remains but histories
The trip of a lifetime in less than a year
Why do we write, why do we read and care?
It's more than I can emotionally hear
It's more than I can emotionally bare
At one point, I was addicted to this place
Constantly reading, checking, and writing
No narcissist could persist at such a pace
With poets I did some loving and fighting
Life forced me on the highway well traveled
I decided I'd leave this country for now
Yet with this decision, I have often graveled
I always found myself looking back somehow
Oceans, mountains, dales, and unexplored bends
That's this poetic journey desired so
No matter if we're laughing or crying my friends
We poets have or want nowhere else to go
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 8:02 PM UTC
As I walk through the graveled paths
When the stinging stones speak to me
Of the pain ****** on trampling feet
I see you in the unlit alleys of my memory
As the wind blows from a covert hide out
Twisting and shaking the branches of trees
Causing them to break and fly off the trunk
I see you in the torn pages of my life’s tome
As I listen to the song of lone birds
And their doleful notes fall in my ears
I am jolted out of my bohemian ways
And feel a plaintive tone floating to me
Wandering along the sprawling beach
As I hear the roar of waves
And when a humdrum of voices fills me
I hear your voice distinct like the beat of my heart
Like the pain at a needle point that shall always be
Like an intruder nudging to steal the inner space
Like the small tremors after a fateful seismic quake
I now know that in me you stay like sleeping fury
Even when I walked away from you
You stubbornly stuck to me
Like a leech tenaciously clinging to the skin
Oh! How hard I struggle to get you off!
Sep 7, 2017
Sep 7, 2017 at 8:29 AM UTC
Sun coming out, Ugh!
Morning rises and it already starts
the yelling the screaming!!!,
Why? oh! why must I have to wake,
take this young man away,
to a Better Place Mr. Grimreaper,
dont lead the way!! Are you Crazy!
just drag my breathing dead corpse,
along that graveled path so that i may feel my body
leaving this cold world and enjoying every
scar and wound that i leave behind!!!
You drag me, I SMILE=) then salute the Life that I will not miss,
like a soldier going home from months of endless combat
I leave Now shed my Last Tear and Wave
GOODBYE!!!!
Mar 13, 2010
Mar 13, 2010 at 9:19 AM UTC
Sleep is my greatest misfortune,
sleep...? Is my aberrant torture
Never been consumed by something like this before
My body is at war, overwhelming gore
My eyelids are folding over my body
As I roll into my flesh bed
I'm forced into a slumber,
my eyes are obliged to unnaturally stay vexed
I dream... or am I graveled?
My intellect is gulled, it affronts,
it soars into my heart
This is infernal, am I dreaming, or am I awake?
A vulture took my brain and put it on a stake
I took the "dream" and buried it all around
As I come back from my excursion
I am hampered, not manumitted
I'm underground
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 4:20 AM UTC
For the woman
Standing in the rain
The cold, and the darkness:
Come in.
Let your bags at the door
Strip off the shoes
You have used to tread the graveled road.
The rain still slips down your face
like tears,
I sense a tremble in your voice
like fears,
Not yet expressed.
You stand at the mirror
And see yourself strangely
You see the dirt
Speckled on your socks
Yet, I see the beauty
Speckled on your cheeks
Your glasses, I see
Broken, cracked and bent
Let me hold them,
Mend them
And give you perspective
Your heart, I feel
Broken, tired and spent
Let me stir it
And open it once more
To the love that stands knocking
For the woman
Standing in the rain
Come in, and rest
This is your safe haven.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 5:09 PM UTC
Silent are the rocks;
Silent the alleys and stone walls,
Cracked foundations and fountains.
No voices speak now, except through the wind
Twisting and turning, on its way through the gorges.
The weather has beaten out every surface,
Stamped it's stalagmite of time upon the faces.
The last rags of clothing hung out to dry
Are a sifting, unrecognizable ash of piled up molecules,
Indiscernible from the storm-strewn cadavers
Of wood, straw and leaves,
Leaves which can laugh at the ferocity of sudden gales
And chatter annoying, behind lifting fingers of twig,
Themselves tumbled shamelessly, into ancient doorways
That once were closed against all intruders.
The cipher of their blood has marked, defined this place,
Pressed it down, with the missing weight of forgotten culture,
Though their language is still indistinguishable from others,
But that their slivered bones have stopped up the pilfering,
The plundering of tombs by wild running waters,
Trickling down to the lowest graveled catacombs
Of a once vibrant village;
It is all running spaces of tomb now,
And the few visitors that happen to wander in
Find themselves holding their breath,
Wary of their modern dissonance
Disturbing the invisible residents of past days.
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 4:42 PM UTC
Through the trials our tongues are tied
to trying times; so many unsaid lines
underneath the rising tides, so many unsaid lies.
No pit burrows behind my grin,
no unlocked chains to rid this graveled ditch.
A picture of a boy, bloodied tree exclamation mark on his chest,
plants the seed for an aesthetic axe.
A glass windowed silhouette,
the infinite effect from eye to window cuts
to millions of pieces of mirrored selves.
The water drains from the watering hole,
A clay bed reflection.
The banks crack, crumble, coalesce into a bed
where two faces meet,
one lacking eyebrows: exasperated, emptied.
Our lives started with the first note ever played,
in the couch cushions where the second **** is displayed.
And our vision for this world,
it will not die when we are dead.
Death brings moments:
trees split by lightning,
grown men struck by screams
growing from a seed
planted in a field of dusty branches.
To plant a seed is to say we’re dead.
And when we are dead,
a weeping willow will grow from the ashes.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 11:56 AM UTC
In a moment of glaring dead ecstasy
The foothold edge wedged down
The world spun into oblivion
Awakened into creamy havoc
On graveled hands and knees
Bludgeoned crevasses
In a dusty cowl of contempt
Toes betray ****** bow
A rocky curtsy of know how
Shake and stand in disdain
Our own dignity stained
Feb 21, 2017
Feb 21, 2017 at 4:02 PM UTC
Thomas Thornburg killed a man last week.
Shot him in the chest from his front porch.
Said he had it coming, but he didn't know why.
The white-haired prophet/executioner.
The confession was perhaps surpassed in the news
by the miracle of Tom finding the the trigger.
Thomas Thornburg brandished 104 years
of what he hesitantly called life.
When brought before the judge he denied representation.
"Never had nobody say nothing for me."
When the gavel struck, Tom raised his hand
and took with his age, his permission.
"Your honor," began the old man's graveled voice,
"This here is not a fair trial."
"You ma'am," he pointed to the woman in blue
who shifted her feet beneath her juror's chair,
"What did you make of Stalin?"
"And you," to the well-groomed 20-something with hair,
"Where were you when they bombed Hiroshima?"
The judge began a sentence he was forced to cut short.
"Ma'am, I imagine you might recollect Duke Ellington,
but I shook hands with Scott Joplin,
and had more than my share of drinks with Fats Waller."
"Mr. Thornburg," said the judge in a patient tone,
"is there a point to your interrogation of the jury?"
"Find me eyes, judge," said the stolid man in lowered tone
"that have seen what I've seen,
that knew life before world wars were named.
Eyes that have watched generations die
and everything change but politicians.
Find me a man who has had the displeasure
of waking up more mornings than there are in a century,
and I will call THAT man my peer."
Tom then turned and, on the weight of his cane,
shed the last of his living tears.
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 12:34 AM UTC
1.
a dream about a boy & his bicycle,
which is red, & coated in winter
& in frost. a dream about a boy
with freckles trailing his hands like layers
of bad teeth. a dream about a boy
whose bones match mine,
but i can’t love him.
2.
more than anything mother
likes to sleep. second to that she likes
having a body that is much, much smaller
than mine is. still there are times
when i pretend that our sleeping is the same.
her nightmares creep into her graveled skin
the same way they creep into mine.
she will keep sleeping,
her bones will keep shrinking.
what does she know about boys,
about a boy?
3.
this is the story of the family of deer
that once lined the lawn
of the house down the street
from where mother & i live without anybody but walls
white as the faces of monks.
they lined the lawn for ten minutes, then were shot.
this is the story of a boy & his bicycle,
& bicycle tracks that line the bodies of dead deer.
a boy who doesn’t know how to cry unless
there’s been a fire.
a dream about a boy & his bike
burning like penances, like ancient worlds.
forest fires line my dreams. forest fires
do not make me love people. battered dogs
do not make me love people. there is a boy
& a bike & he has a dog & the dog too
has been bruised by flame.
4.
how to cure: a dry mouth?
how to cure: what has been lived in?
how to cure: a fire?
if only my mother could step out of her bed
now. she would see me shivering with the skin
of somebody who should never look like me.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
A fleeting glimpse of who I was,
a second sight of youth regained
was paradise to blinded eyes;
a gift of passing time detained.
A shaggy bear with angel's voice
was how a critic once described
my work. Through age and not by choice,
the golden tone grew tarnished, bled
of grace and wings. Last night...last night;
the angel burst through graveled throat,
dipped, soared in unfettered flight
through every song and spot-on note.
Expressive, strong, no cracks or strain;
what joy it was to sing again.
Mar 13, 2011
Mar 13, 2011 at 9:37 AM UTC
Pardon me, but who are you?
To tell me what is wrong and true?
Have you looked upon God's face
and seen all of time through his grace?
I thought so, weakling man,
Lying fool, with a wasted span....
Excuse me! But who are you!
To tell me what there is to do?
Authority vain, were you born
As Jesus was? Did all mourn
upon your grave that followed you
through the End? And past it too?
I thought not, arrogant man,
wasted weary in graveled lands...
But then, Who's job is it to do what is to do
if what is to be done is done too?
Then who, may I ask, are you?
Then who, may I ask, are you?
Jul 6, 2010
Jul 6, 2010 at 2:06 PM UTC
Peace, a six letter word that is so abyss
a kind of thing that is so breezy and freaky.
The thing that makes the world go wild
and makes all **** so blind.
The one we aim to graveled evilness
and let kindness fight the beast for the best.
For it might be tight but if we fight
all of it will shine so bright.
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 12:47 AM UTC
tears on a tongue,
dried, graveled peppers scorched
her skin. it's damaging
to think the ground possesses the
fury of a pagan god.
it's an intensity, unmatched;
a handshake, five fingers.
she makes me want to hurt myself again.
my sanity lies on the edge;
the circumcised periphery,
make me whole.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 1:16 AM UTC
pt 1
i am very aware of skin & i am very aware of a ***** in my mouth. it feels like the basement light ought to be turned off, but instead the room is very bright, like the insides of your mouth.
quick, open up your hands & we’ll see what’s inside of them. you taste like lipstick. i laugh.
*your **** tastes like light red lipstick — like, you know that one traffic light by that one intersection in town by the yellow house? yeah, your **** tastes like lipstick & the lipstick is the same shade of red as that light.* i laugh again.
she belongs to the yellow house. the yellow house belongs to her, like a mutt. no other dog could ever belong to her the way that yellow house can.
(you: when you were gone i got mad at you because you accused me of something i didn’t do.)
before you left we stood on graveled driveway & i should have told you that you smelled like new paint.
pt 2
help we’re in these woods & help i’m vomiting again & help this time it’s your hair that’s piling out of my mouth
help my teeth are still vicious around your waist & help yours are still wrapped around hers
(please help please i’m vomiting again)
i think i’m drunk; i think we’re drunk; i think she’s drunk:
we’re stumbling over roots & rocks as though there isn’t a sky perched above us, high & deep like your throat against my shoulder: that’s going to leave a mark
i mostly leave marks in bathrooms & you mostly leave marks on me, i think i’m a road, i tell you
& you laugh & so does she & i ask why she’s here & her eyes go dark like children’s bedrooms & your eyes narrow & i shut up
the sky is still very large, very wide, less like a throat now, more like a tongue
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 10:59 PM UTC
you never realized
you were blind. so ******* blind.
i defended you, caught bullets for you, graveled at your feet for you.
thinking everything was my fault
all for you.
you smiled.
one smile.
and gone.
all i see now is your ghost
everywhere.
your ghost haunts me; making faces and telling me over and over
"you fool. you fool"
i wish i was face to face with you
so i could throw my emotions at you
i would gather them up in one big bundle
and shove them in your face
you would suffocate. you would cry.
you would suffer.
like i had been for so long
i would ask you,
"how does it feel?"
but you wouldn't be able to respond
for the pain would be too great
then, then
finally,
i would breathe.
the baggage will be gone, and i will run
i will laugh at you
laugh until tears leak from my eyes
laugh until my ribs break
if you weren't such a ******* coward,
i would have won.
instead you hide behind
your lies, fake confidence
you're cracking
but i know you won't admit
i'm the only.
the only one who sees
look me in the eye.
admit it
admit you threw me away
admit you never cared
admit that this all meant nothing
and admit...
admit you can't do it.
your ghost is here
with no intention of leaving
Mar 7, 2011
Mar 7, 2011 at 3:50 PM UTC