"grindstone" poems
Gliding deftly along the city street
rolling quick and constantly
onward to some unknown scene,
some backward park in the nighttime
smoke curling from these
parted lips, moist and inviting
calling me somewhere I've never seen.
New day, new night
new feelings, rage in delight
fill me with your hilarious entropy,
knock my quarks into the next century,
will you please?
Now you're smoking the pipe and all at once you are free
between you and me, this smoke is thicker and sticks
like glue,
wispy and dreamy and the world spins and calls Toltec
telephone company can't pay me for all those calls collected
and rendered obsolete
Sun god dead as that silly calendar meme
Amaterasu,
and Imma tell you
these ladies in the picnic table
buried alive for boxed lunch and god's brunch
Jesus ******* Christ
and a indelible roster of good guys,
to which we all must strive to live and die
behind,
never moving forward
chasing our tails like a sick dog
under the jasmine runner between the decades-old tanbark
imported from overseas
dead trees
dead canine
and oh isn't it just divine?
You see it, pretty lady.
I can see it hiding behind your eyes
the things you don't tell the others because you're afraid
if they found out,
you'd be crucified.
Well honey I hate to inform,
With KGB efficiency that these love-a-dumbs
aint Methuselah,
they'll be dead!
long before your flood of tears tears me from the land
ballistas me across the great expanse to some strange Ararat
of the eastern seaboard,
or maybe wash me deep along the 80
into the desert sands and tiles
on a leaky cell phone screen
desperately trying to dial home on low battery,
realizing all this was one big deferred dream,
baking in the sun and shriveling
oh well, back to the grindstone-- all those lies plucked your nose,
gotta cut it back to size,
'else your soul it'll outgrow
Don't worry honey bee
It hasn't happened to me,
and We know with calcuable mathematical truth
that it'll never happen to you.
Jun 26, 2018
Jun 26, 2018 at 9:50 PM UTC
I watch people in the world
Throw away their lives lusting after things,
Never able to satisfy their desires,
Falling into deeper despair
And torturing themselves.
Even if they get what they want
How long will they be able to enjoy it?
For one heavenly pleasure
They suffer ten torments of hell,
Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.
Such people are like monkeys
Frantically grasping for the moon in the water
And then falling into a whirlpool.
How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.
Despite myself, I fret over them all night
And cannot staunch my flow of tears.
10.3k
An ode seems appropriate
To the classical style
Of the columns and the domes
Above the green court.
Many things have adorned that dome:
Squad car, fire truck, droid, and phone
But today, viewed in a mind's eye—sunlight.
But as were that phone booth still apparent
From afar it now calls, and now I shall answer.
Over the river, and through the urban jungle,
Through the sky, 400 miles, as the airliner flies
But worth every inch, rod, meter or smoot.
It beckons to the mind and to the heart;
It beckons to the soul of a scholar.
Were I less knowing I might think not
That light fell from above onto that dome.
But rather, that the hemisphere
Gave forth the blazing light
ebullience of photons, amidst
Torrents of knowledge.
Its hallowed halls, numbered precisely,
Soon no longer a forbidden temple shall be
Instead, I shall tread there, such as I am
Learn from efforts I effect and others I see
O Halls, I shall greet thee, O Tunnels in winter
Traverse and find warmth to keep body to task
For knowledge, always, comes with a high price
In joules, dollars, cents, days and hours of rest
Long nights turn to dawns, nose to the grindstone
Maybe just one more tool; okay, maybe another.
But brother meets brother, and sister meets sister
On both sides of the river, and the work gets done.
Whether Greek or not, there is community here
A problem, or a set of them, is always seen through.
As the sun now rises, a new day sets in. In a few
hours of my life I will rise to these challenges.
With a chirping, I shall cross the paths that I come to,
Enter the halls .. and my journey shall begin.
~ D. B. Guy
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:19 AM UTC
What Dr. Lector devours with fava beans, inside rots. Too much Chianti?
Not likely. Likely, not enough
but there has been much else. Still,
no amounts warranting any shy example of overload. Mild splurges,
done in high style equal
nothing in comparison to toxic
baths taken in industrial grindstone
mortors. And the payback?
Walking papers and abdominal lump.
Poke it and choke on acid reflux. Pop
more pills to keep it down. Downers
prescribed on more downers.
Feeling down? Have another downer.
What else can we do? Your MRI's
and ultrasound, unsound, do not
come with flag from foreign invader,
claiming this new territory for king.
So, blame it on the offal.
Blame it all on the offal for not
having guts and glory
to fight off its own infection.
And eat your chicken livers.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 1:21 PM UTC
Keep your nose to the grindstone
echo and boom.
Tucked in shirt and buttoned blue collars.
Coffee, no milk, no sugar.
Pagans in a pageant
lifting slabs with slack hands.
Old muscles knotted and torn
a drone sound, stillborn as the childless playground.
Mocking and mundane
the bell rings and shatters the silence
leaving tools on the floor and empty parking spaces.
Nothing left but the weep of pigeons in the rafters
and the breeze that arrives
only after the workers departure.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 6:18 AM UTC
Across the road
A J-K girl,
Skipped and laughed
On her way to school.
She was strapped
To a big back-pack,
Looking like
A pink pack mule.
Behind her strove
Her drover,
Directing her to quarry
All the stones of learning.
By three o'clock
My minature mule,
A little slower
Trudged from school.
The pack was filled
With rules and tools.
She had panned
The ores of knowledge;
She'll assay them
In days to follow.
Each day my mule
Will turn the grindstone,
Crunching numbers,
Sifting fine poems.
She's mining all the hidden gems
To fill her back-pack
Once again.
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
My favorite people are women
Right from the very beginning
Let the boss kick your tail
Let the stockmarket fail
In her arms you will know you are winning
Some come with the loveliest chassis
They like to put fog on your glasses
Pursue till you catch one
Persistance will fetch one
Who'll love to receive your cool passes
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE ARE WOMEN
THEY LOVE COWBOYS AND LAWYERS AND ******
THEY GIVE THEIR LAST CRUMB
MY MOTHER WAS ONE
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE ARE WOMEN
She has the same notion as you son
She's not a big teaser to out run
Commit a wee bit of chasing
Then it's time for embracing
Your libido is due for some fun
As you've kept your nose to the grindstone
Receiving great love from a fine one
If you're worn to deep slumber
You can take down her number
There's always another night, Son
CHORUS
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 4:43 PM UTC
Guarantee the valley...
Sweat and simple salt
Shared by constant, and fluent reasons
The tale of taste in a long run, for a hidden fault
Twists of fate, insists of courtesy
The truth be told, I have no problem
With wisdom, the tale of evidentiality
But a wise more, to finish anger, is our whim
Latent, the sobbing of a charisma
Sweet endeavor, do I seem the better of others?
When a promise of significance, is ours for the only dilemma
That will make liberty, a levity in justice, the irony of lovers?
We have the time, to tell you another story...
Through the timid shall, the world has a future to beautify
With all of a sincerity's bloom, a pyre to worry?
And the coming victory of self and same, a lucre we identify
With hatred...
Here to say, in language we see, is an assured privilege
The tows of compelling a home to sing the body lead
To wishes in the name of God, is anywhere here and now, a legend?
Poise of a common nose, to the grindstone
Welcome us to the table of vice, like a halt of decency
Among the clouds or finished with sunshine early, we have sown
The new, with now, the needs of all; any soul to show humanity...
Jul 1, 2022
Jul 1, 2022 at 8:27 PM UTC
Oats, stay dry for fecunditys harvest, as Eostres' hares
bring pittu; Falling earthbound, in abundance.
Spring madness dawns;
Love, persists.
Once willowed, under Winter skies, **shed all
we've done before.**
Bringing warmth (sown a lifetime ago) to embrace
this thaw.
Watching our steps, across moss green floors; We dance
lingering in the sweetest meadows.Together,
under budding branches;
It's time...
Blossom, reflected upon dappled millpond;
Still.
- Dark glassed surface, gently rippling with undertone -
Can you hear the water paddles roar?
Will Springs' spirit guide you; With carnal lust abound,
trusting Her to save your oats from being;
Taken...turned out...
ground?
We,
with spare oats, heap
to powdered dust; Sifted, then refined...
Molded something beautiful, wholesome, yet devine!
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 9:40 AM UTC
We are taught to be goal oriented at an early age...
Learn to share and others will share with you
Eat your vegetables and you can have dessert
Finish your homework and you can play outside
Through adolescence and into adulthood, the conditioning occurs unabated...
Practice hard and you will make the team
Score well on tests and you will place into a good university
Keep your nose to the grindstone and success in career will follow
Is it any wonder many religions fit the same mold?
Do onto others as you would have them do onto you,
but, hey, the real payoff will come in the afterlife
Have you ever wondered what would change if the future
was not quite so clear,
perhaps a little fuzzy,
even uncertain?
What if you knew now,
that you would not be given your place above the clouds,
an eternity of bliss,
a value proposition that cannot be surpassed?
What if all there was is what is,
our time together,
our relationships,
our ability to do right on this earth simply
to enable others to grow,
to thrive,
and to be happy?
Would you...change your plans? Change your master scheme?
If and when a judgment day comes,
who will be the more pure of heart....
the one that is once again striving for the goal
or the one that is acting simply for the reason that
it is the right thing to do?
Nov 23, 2010
Nov 23, 2010 at 8:16 AM UTC
The u-turn of uninterrupted talk
Falls short before the midnight hour
And through the remembrances
The hushed
Echoing of a printed face smiles
Among the old and new.
But only you know he has gone,
For your heart is broken
And thrown about the room
Where your old man's chair sits alone....
Where you once shared
A laugh and a joke,
A tear and a smoke,
A kiss and a hug,
A poem and a mug
Of tea,
(With a wee dram of Glenmorangie)
On a cold night
By the firelight,
Reading Frost
- 'The Grindstone'
In candlelight,
Listening to Django Reinhardt's
'Crazy Rhythm'
On the radio
As it beats out a frenetic system
Of notes that runs and parts
Into segments of your mind.
Now you are on your own,
You sit back to find
What you have lost....
©Jack Aylward,
July 2013
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 5:34 PM UTC
Kid trying to keep up
I want knew shoes
ones that will just float me there
always been a clever kid
nose in a book
or to the grindstone
decent grades
but could do better
*** I never can quite keep up
I break down
I mess up
I have a twitchy personality
makes me neurotic
nu-erotic
overly loving
maternal
and likely to get broken and swept off the table where it was that I was learning
the secrets
of the universe
Sexed up
hating ***
hating pleasure
but seeking it
a contradiction
and not happy with it
nobody's gotta tear me in half,
I'm doing that myself
but that hasn't stopped folks from trying
One was a snake
sliding around me
whispering things
manipulating
pushing
pushing
pushing
the other was like the spring rain
cold and sweet
and always beating on my head
they tried
**** near worked
but then after them,
one found the glue
and one to hold me better
and I'm still not there
watching a super nova in slow motion
gotta give you a headache after a while
pass an Aspirin
I talk like a bull whip
and I could give you whiplash how quick my moods shift
threatens to yank my own head off
You know what I mean?
I guess you gotta
Firecracker
over excited
panicked out
strung out on my own issues
then wheeled out to dry on the line
flapping there with the fish and your knickers
but hey, I could just go on all day
about why it is
and what it is
and what thing is bugging me now
and yeah, this is a long poem,
*** I feel like I've never talked to any of you
and you seem to like me
you know what I mean?
Like I said before
I'm a kid trying to keep up
and ****
my head hurts
but I just gotta keep running
you have an issue?
Fight me
**** that
I'd win
get guilty
and I don't need that
so just stop reading, whatever,
if you don't want to be my friend
like I said, you may want an aspirin
'specially after this one
Means a lot to me that you read this far, though
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 8:24 AM UTC
My heart didn't break
When you texted me "we're through."
It broke too, too terribly long ago.
You'd push away and longingly stare
At those with a nobody
pretending to be someone.
You closed off your life
And blamed me for respecting you
For giving you space.
But now, your grindstone letters
Which have crushed me for so long
Merely ground the flour
That Will, one day, bake a beautiful cake.
I wait for the day,
That may never come,
When I can say
Stronger now
Better now
Repaired now
Myself now.
But like the dust in the mill,
You've stained the flour, tainted the cake.
You got what you wanted, but still you take,
With the impunity of the grindstone, crushing the flour.
And that is why the flour never wears on the grindstone.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 5:51 PM UTC
The minds of man are turning,
always yearning for more.
Heads are always rolling,
demanding perfection or else.
What constitutes that I'm another bill?
I think I mean more than you think I do.
Raise your fist to have it torn back down.
You have to stand your ground.
Put our nose to the grindstone,
only to lose our pay.
Men sit around, don't get their hands *****
but think they have the right to take it away.
See the dollar signs in their eyes.
Money running through their veins.
We're just slaves for the industry.
We're stuck in the maze.
Everything is made of gold,
all they want is more.
We're just another bill,
they slip in their back pocket.
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 8:37 PM UTC
12/10/2012:
A very mellow day,
A day that makes one’s golden years actually golden.
Happy in retirement?
There’s a joke:
You slave like Spartacus in the Libyan salt mines for 30 or 40 or even 50
years, and now you’re supposed to re-calibrate the machine, re-gauge
one’s anatomy and metabolism for a habitat so far and away grindstone
gone.
The muckrakers Studs Terkel and Barbara Ehrenreich remind us:
Work is the only thing we can do for 8 hours, other than sleep.
Perchance even to dream out that Roman **** or Bacchanal.
No, alas, 4 hours is the legal limit for an ******** lasting that long,
During all our joy-juiced carnal desires,
Be they under the elms or elsewhere.
**Cialis! ******
Names already living it up in infamy.
A simple truth about Retirement:
Stop working and die.
A most intense public service announcement,
A vast digital image out of Yeats,
A very special Spiritus Mundi P-S-A.
Targeting Baby Boomers, especially:
“You better find yourself something,
Or someone to occupy your mind.”
Brought to you by the good people at
OCCUPY BRAIN STREET,
First a national, then a veritable global movement,
However so short-lived;
Like all the others.
Oh, Boomers, your attention span is down to 8 minutes.
Your mnemonic links are frayed and tattered,
Your hard drive noodle fragmented,
Yet still whirring white noise jazz.
A New Orleans Dixieland funeral,
And Al-Zheim trumpet blast to go out on.
Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,
But I am relatively well adjusted in retirement.
And today—previously mentioned as a mellow day--
Today is one reason why.
As is medical marijuana and the sultry voice of Chrissie Hynde,
With or without her band of Pretenders.
And let’s throw in a lovely bottle of Temecula red wine--
Doffo, if you’re going to get fussy on me,
Another blithe distraction cultivated and custom-made for old age.
Indeed, a very mellow day.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 3:21 PM UTC
Our affections are resinous
By the grindstone, made
Confections.
Our patience tasteful impressions
By words, sweet turpeny made
Ever-growing since.
Our laughter like camphor
Sowed by thyme, made
Love, after.
Your love is unwashed
Grown and ground, made to steep
Cherry beans, grown in their burgundy glove.
Dec 28, 2018
Dec 28, 2018 at 7:51 PM UTC
returned to the same desk,
the same grindstone, the same thoughts,
cyclical patterns of thought and action,
but which comes first?
the will slips, the cracks widen,
and it all floods in, easier to understand,
caught within the same ropes,
you spun from woes of a broken past,
and they were meant to help climb out,
but the grease that bounds the threads,
cannot be grasped by those unresolved,
to the reality they crave most,
Mar 15, 2022
Mar 15, 2022 at 12:41 AM UTC
Garth lay still in the gilded cage
Unable to move a thing,
The bars were merely spiders’ webs
Of a faery’s magicking.
He’d wandered into the Faery Ring
Where he’d seen the mushrooms spread,
And now was caught in a faery spell
With the rest of the living dead.
With Tom, the Candlestick Maker’s son
And a barrel of candlewax,
He’d dawdled home from the marketplace
And lay in the beckoning grass.
He woke to find he was tightly bound
With a faery up on his chest,
She said, ‘Lock him in the cage as well,
Along with all of the rest.’
And Madge, the maid with a milking pail
Who was sent to milk the cow,
She’d wandered off on her way; she thought,
She needed to feed the sow.
She woke to mushrooms, ten feet tall
All towering over her head,
The stalks were bars, set under the stars
And her limbs, they felt like lead.
While Tim the Tinker was there as well
With his knives and sharpening tools,
His grindstone lay in a pile of hay
And the bonds on him were cruel.
The beggar lay in his filthy rags
While the rich man muttered, ‘Shame!’
He’d soiled his boots and his Regency suit,
Was bound with his watch and chain.
They lie not far from the caravans
Of a gypsy camping ground,
So Faeries say: ‘Let’s take them away
Before they’re seen and found!’
But dancing into the faery ring
Is the Gypsy, Mavourneen,
Who stumbles over the gilded cage
And steps on the Faery Queen.
The top flies off from the gilded cage,
The webs of the bars are torn,
And Garth crawls over the mushroom heads
To swear, ‘I feel reborn!’
The faeries weep as they carry their Queen
In death, to their Faery Dell,
There’s mushrooms still in that Faery Ring,
But now, Toadstools as well!
David Lewis Paget
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
Time plays games
with me and
she’s been winning
On an off-kilter axis,
Atlas, the world is spinning
a little too fast
It’s been months
already since I
shed my masks
still somehow I’m surprised
it doesn’t show
how bright
I am
newborn it’s-a-baby-girl pink
where
(are you excited?)
smooth skin meets the
grindstone
peeling away scales grown
denying myself
You promised, Momma,
you’d never be embarrassed
how could you be
I mean
I am new-born-baby-girl pink
light and airy
not so sure
its a sure thing
you’ll see
But
the truth is that I
don’t have to
open my mouth
to be
and somehow
that makes it all
a little
slower
Dec 8, 2019
Dec 8, 2019 at 6:43 PM UTC
*'Brownleaf Chestnut giants rattle like Spanish dancers , maracas crackle in the changing wind , do perform auburn 'Lover of Autumn' before the plenteous , frosted daughter of Winter , before Sun sprinkled dale , fig , lilac
Atop the red-rock spillway , as the piping martins , the whippoorwill
question , the wild goose direction
Voice of the swallow , of tenderness and regal griffin
Coppering , flint sparked showers upon the grindstone , mesmerizing
twilight orbs , polished gems , starlight Guatemalan priestess* ....
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
do you fear fear
a nail biter? a bedwetter?
or are there other compulsions
you cling to
step out, from the stale shade of the dark
that consumed you
no longer does it
feel the warmth that the sun casts down
sometimes, it's all one can do to beat the blues
this road of life is rocky
and it sees us all stumble
you chart your course
stick to it
as a blade meeting grindstone
water's introduction to limestone
Feb 22, 2021
Feb 22, 2021 at 12:09 PM UTC
You know how you have one of those days at work where time is crawling by and you want nothing more than for the day to be over and it feels excruciating? But then you put your nose to the grindstone and just slug it out. And you do not stop until the end of the day.
That is how I feel today, only I have different work to do. And the work I have to do is like that project you put off because you just do not want to do it. It is that file you put on the bottom of everything and just hope it will resolve itself. But you know it will not. Every day you pick up that file thinking today may be the day you will get started. But you do not. You have questions about some of the material in the file, you are not sure what to do, and you are unable to complete the project because there is nobody around to answer your questions. You have left several messages for her, the woman who was supposed to answer your questions, but she has not called you back. And now you are angry because you need guidance! You need her help you, you cannot do it on your own! But it has been too long now. She is not going to call you back...she is not going to give you the directions you need to complete this project. You know that you are on your own now.
That is how I feel right now. The file before me is filled with my life, my past, and my painful memories. It contains my feelings of shame, sadness, anger…hopelessness and worthlessness. The project is to take each page and fit it together like a puzzle…and once the puzzle is together, the project will be complete and I will be whole.
But I do not know where to start.
I am lost.
I feel like a ship without a rudder.
A sailboat without a spinnaker.
I am a tourist without a guide.
I am a lost child without her mother... alone and frightened.
I am crying…but she can no longer hear me.
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 9:21 PM UTC
Han-Shan got it right:
the fewer people,
the fewer distractions;
welcome visitors,
but discourage guests.
Drink to ecstasy,
but not remorse.
Let your children
lead their own lives.
Expect nothing
from anyone;
you will never
be disappointed.
Assume that death
waits outside
right now,
holding your car keys.
Keep your nose
on the cosmic grindstone;
keep you fingers
on the Dharma throttle;
place preparedness
for resurrection
at the top
of your to-do list:
nothing, but this
solitary moment,
is guaranteed.
- mce
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 10:04 AM UTC
We sharpen axes, knives and the occasional wit
and we don't do it lightly because
the grindstone is ****
It's a job
It's a job
for Tom. **** and Bob
a likely looking trio if ever
a ********* was.
I go it solo
believe in my mojo
the grindstone is too
slow for me.
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 2:54 PM UTC
Her promises shine golden
His intent rings true
But when forced to the grindstone
Everything falls through.
Can we blame them?
The charade society provokes
Through sex-fuelled propaganda and sappy envelopes
Has written off all stench of decay.
Drug-induced perspective renders each romance fresh
Blinding one to the maggots eroding its flesh
Where people **** to conceal their pain
And persist in vain
To shape the ghost of a dream.
Long after ******
The facts emerge.
Couples gape at their necrotic afterbirth.
They don't understand the futility
Of simply coping.
Gone is hoping
For something beyond the physical.
There's nothing mystical
About mindless lust
Or the relationships scattered to dust
In its wake.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 1:56 PM UTC