"grizzled" poems
~
*O Painter
with thy own eye
would thee
paint me in mine own natural hue
prithee paint me as i am,
imperfections
and blemishes true
Load thy brush
with colors sundry
to maketh yond first pure sweep
across the ****** frieze,
fill'd with pangs of hunger.
paint me as i standeth
bethought, in deep
With mine own love and mine own desire,
blurring the edges unclean
with mine own regrets
and mine own mental gyre,
in mine own natural age,
of deep forest green
O Painter
Paint me sinister turquoise,
in lavender and maroon,
combine the amethyst and amber
blend the iceberg
and the indigo moon.
Paint me as i standeth,
prithee see with thy eye
a mistress in yond lady plight
Prithee paint me all i am
i cullionly
a mistress in all yond lady might
Paint me in the optimistic
silv'r of dawn,
but don’t miss the purple
to shade the bruise
of the bygone.
paint me in the sky blue journal
O Painter
Paint me as a unique template
smudge black white and grizzled
merging all the colors of thy palette.
col'r me a rainbow
in a rainy drizzle
Paint me tall so yond i standeth
loftier than any mountain
Paint me as a dram bird, delicate
with soft feathers silken
Paint me harmony, as a violin
so yond i can sing thy solitary tune
paint me as thy poetry
with song and melody
wrapp'd in a cocoon
O Painter
paint me as a dream yond rises
in did saturate colors
with a steady upbeat flight awry
tint, a fluttering
of a quite quaint butterfly
Portray me with endurance
imbue so bold and bright
doth not hesitate
to depict mine own mind
in profound fuchsia and white.
Useth the colors yond thee would borrow
Thy palette not yet exsufflicate
Paint mine own loss and mine own sorrow
in search of a shade so ******
Adorn mine own heart in glowing garnet
at which hour thee paint mine own love
add a true broken blue shade
of the cloud and the rain above;
Study mine own dry sorrow
in mine own soul
useth any shade thee plaited
soften the edges of control
in a tinge of xanthene.
O Painter
Prithee paint me
Mine own passion and mine own spirit
shall has't a crimson r'd hint
mine own remorse and mine own regret
shall reflect an ink stain print
Paint me in mine own eye so true
O Painter
but add a dash of courage too*
~
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 10:52 AM UTC
Amid the verbose magicians
Seeking kinships
And sailing deep into their arduous mists
Watching them peddle their afternoon
To a handful of smiling children holding their breath
Amazed in gentle body trick
The older men of age
Leaning deep into their creased chins
Stroking the grizzled fat
Blinding light of soul
Staring down the barrel of life
Striking the enemy one last time
And yet smiling
sober,
Met of match,
taking care of their kids.
Then there's the cold-clocked dudes
On the phone pushing buttons
In a button-up raglan
Lost indistinct
the promised land
The golden shores swept away by
inconvenient time
Left shopping in an auto mall
"Won't you look at the time?"
7.07 APR
Boy what a steal!
And Steve maddened and screamed
As the lines blurred instinctual between opposing teams
And the oven dinged a great alabaster slant
Leaning towards the new millenitants
Rise up!
***** the wheel
Turn the axel from pistons
To alkaline metal
And doubt with great monumental
Quality
That the machine borders all
And we cannot retreat
And while I sift bouyantly between the waves
Searching the puzzle piece within the molecules
Reconnecting with the things
And representing
dreams on a 66 hertz screen
I call rather failing
Towards a black rocked shore
Towards the sweet Dorigen
Of my dreams
Finding an integral of time
And space
And calculating the intangible slope
Of my desmise
With the imaginary constiutent
Of that lighted mind.
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 4:24 PM UTC
This was just published so it is copyright 2015 by Holy Cow Press ~ mce
Poverty is the fence around your life. Poverty wakes you up at 4 AM only to whisper meaningless slogans in your ear. It is the school of Piranha nibbling at the back of your brain. It is two hours waiting in the anteroom of despair for $22 worth of food stamps and being glad to be there. It is changing your phone number frequently because bill collectors are such boring conversationalists. It is the empty space your heels used to fill. It is letting your hair grow long and scraggly and your grizzled beard sprout because you know that although you sleep in rented rooms tonight, the street is not far off, and you want to fit in when you arrive. Poverty scalds the lint from your pockets. It is your private Treblinka within which you rage but are crushed. It is desperate prayers against dental catastrophes, blown tires, surprises of any sort. Poverty is when everything you own is frayed including your nerves from sleepless moments spent trying to solve the equation that will make X number of dollars cover X + ? number of bills, knowing that such math would defeat Newton or Einstein. Poverty is eying the cat's kibble imagining that with a bit of sugar and a splash of milk it might be fine and then eyeballing the cat himself thinking of protein of last resort and trying not to measure him against the microwave door. You ration your cigarettes; whiskey is a fading memory. Passing a diner on the street, you catch a whiff of burgers too expensive to consider and experience a Pavlovian moment. Poverty is trying to keep your head up and then remembering you pawned your neck. Poverty is watching the needle eat your last few gallons of gas. Poverty is the archeology of despair. It portends the death of irony. There is nothing ironic about a car with 217,000 miles and no insurance on it. Facts are facts in the world of poverty. Poverty is the last quarter reclaimed from beneath the cushions. It is too much time and not enough quarters. It is the specious logic of the self-righteous proclaiming that you deserve to be poor because you are, which in Amerika passes for wisdom. Poverty makes each day like the next because nothing does not vary. It is who you are and where you are going, although you won't get far. It is the life you lead inside the fence. It is the sum of what you lack. It just is.
- mce
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 7:54 PM UTC
From padded window seat inside café
cup of tea warms my hands
cold winds shuffle sidewalk leaves
Two tables away sit two men
one in October years
the other May
Soiled clothes, old scuffed shoes, beat up weathered
faces, bloodshot eyes, ***** hair disheveled
The older begins reading to the younger
from newspaper wrinkled by other hands
“Rain and wind coming in tonight from the west,
tomorrow - clearing, with temps in high 30s
toward evening - dropping to low 30s
Saturday, sunny, high 30s”
The young man’s grizzled chiseled face
seemingly stoic
flinched stiff with the words
“Sunday, low 20s, snow mixed with sleet”
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 5:21 AM UTC
Goth Child nursed his mother's tattooed *****
Snapped **** with teeth
Then grizzled grin at me and spit up
I poked at my chile relleno
Twisting hot cheesy sludge off prongs
Tour jete with fork finishes in arabesque
Between my own fangs
I spit back scalding ****
Goth Child points, says, "Pawpee, that man is scarewee"
Pawpee turns his tattoo tears to see
Flashes his gleaming grill
I sink in my seat behind sightline of salsa squeeze bottle
Chattering ivories
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 2:19 PM UTC
You know the highways, dark alleys, and short cuts of the fire. Dawn to dusk in an endless soufflé. When water hits boil I join to chop but I fall asleep, I am yet to be seasoned. When I awake I dine and dash. I apologize for treating you like digestion, for forgetting the grizzled spatula. My humility was famished my pride was stuffed. How ignorant to believe the pilot rose and fell like the sun. Spiritual starvation my consequence for self-righteous gluttony but now my plate is sparkling and I can see clear reflection, instead of a bite I desire to serve you both hand and foot as you have served me….Thank you……Jesus
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 9:09 AM UTC
iPad Love
4:49 AM, and by the light of the silvery moon
and our iPad screens turned down low,
we snuggle side by side, our fingers glide so softly upon each,
each of our own devices, this technique,
it could be an app, teaching how to caress a human being.
No need to tell you in sound, out loud,
how you turn my heart upside down,
I'll just post a note of appreciation on Facebook,
you will see it faster, and besides, you got your earphones on and
could not hear my sweet nothings if I screamed them in high definition.
The newspaper arrives on the electric "doorstep" -
no longer will do we venture outside in
pink bathrobes and curlers, or boxer shorts,
a legal gesture of neighborly disdain.
Americana, losing another icon, as well as
insuring the unemployment of thousands of newspaper deliverers,
boys and girls, on bicycles, their first job, now obsolescent.
Your feet, so cozy and warm, touching mine,
the sensation, lovely and fine, duly recorded in a poem
that on my iPad I scribble, as my typos disappear, out of sight.
your ear, I nibble, something you hate and I love,
but electronically, it's done with no fuss or muss, and
I don't even have to move!
Sadly, I can find no app that will bring the warmth
of a cup of coffee to my night table, and the gun metal casing of
this invention is chilly, but still Steve, with almost God like vision,
you brought us closer in ways prior unimagined.
So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.
Nothing, something, even as thin as my iPad 2(!)
will come between us and the holiness, the uniqueness of
the human touch.
2011
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 4:30 PM UTC
Things sometimes fall apart
Among sisters and brothers,
No matter what they once were.
Childhood picnics and dreamy games,
Memories of trips with Dad,
Since Mom was tired of us.
We would climb Appalachian peaks
Or drive to look at the Mayflower.
Every summer there was a golden week
A lakeside cottage and all-day swims
In crystal water, becoming mermaids.
But time passes and bitterness accrues.
Imagined slights grow like slow tumors,
Never excised but nurtured by some.
I go to college and am freed
From the poison of ignorant rage,
From the creeping depression left
Like diesel fog on an endless floor.
Four or five years of delight pass
With only hints here or there
Of a sibling’s misery at home.
Of a once close sister, Maggie,
Who is ignored and never loved
By any man she pursues.
She blames me for it, for reasons
I have yet to fathom.
Of a brother, Francis, deluded, drugged,
Steals the family car in a rage
And drives to New York City.
Of Deirdre, the middle sister,
Whose friend who knows men who feed
On her ignorance and rebellion.
Only Susannah tries to rise above
The maelstrom of misery.
I send her to a school far away
And she sheds despair, at least.
Decades drawl, children are born to us,
While the bridge between us, obscured,
Sags and frays under weight of rancor.
Christmas dinners and birthday parties
Turn into chores, invitations kept as scores.
Petty grudges, like acid, sever the bridge
At last, all ties are abandoned.
When we are all grown and scattered,
No one speaking to anyone else,
Unaware, uncaring about the others.
Only Susannah visits me and smiles,
With no ulterior plan for insane revenge,
Or accusations for errant slights.
Her once dark hair is grizzled and wild
And her girlish skin now creased.
But her treacle eyes, “black aggies”,
I used to call them, still shine.
Only Susannah writes a letter,
Wishing us well and
Healing scars made by others,
Returning the word “family”.
To my basket of small treasures,
I carry with me
Into the twilight.
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 10:52 AM UTC
I stepped into the house and removed
my rain-soaked shoes on the grizzled entrance mat.
No one in the kitchen.
Though the aroma lingered, the coffee *** had turned itself off.
I touched the glass -- cool.
No one in the living room.
Half a pair of sequined flats were in the dog's mouth,
half a lady's pantsuit -- the black legs -- lied on the floor.
A soap opera on the screen, the volume low, the gold-tipped ceiling fan oscillating,
and Serge Gainsbourg's Histore de Melody Nelson played down the hall.
I followed the breathy vocals and wandering baseline to my room,
and there she sat.
The blinds open, veiny rain running along the pane,
on the beige carpeted floor, next to my unmade bed,
criss-crossed Jessica.
"Hey, sweetheart," I said.
Jessica smiled.
When she smiles, her cheeks go flush,
she lowers her head slowly, embarrassed,
but yet when she laughs,
she laughs loudly, boldly.
I've never understood that.
Jessica was wearing a white, spaghetti-strap undershirt
and blue cotton *******
Her brunette curls -- down, reaching past her shoulders.
Her toenails -- painted purple and chipped.
Newspapers lied strewn about her,
with puddles of acrylic paint atop them.
In her lap,
a white canvas stapled to a wooden backing frame.
She sang,
*"Princesse des ténèbres, archange maudit,
Amazone modern' style que le sculpteur,
En anglais, surnomma Spirit of Ecstasy."*
as she painted two lovers growing together
like curious oak trees.
I sat behind her on my bed. Pushed aside the tangled sheets.
She craned her neck to kiss my cheek sweetly.
"How was your day?" I asked.
"Oh, who cares," she responded.
Her eyebrows lifted, her fingertips traced my thigh,
"Tell me something beautiful."
"What?"
She dipped her paintbrush in red, in white and applied them
to the lovers' lips.
"Tell me something beautiful."
"I can't think of anything," I said.
"Try."
Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 12:03 AM UTC
Greens and gold of lattice work cascading down the tree,
This epiphyte, so infinitely, delicately free.
A lattice work of green finesse, a miniature Cezanne
With exquisiteness of spiky bloom embellishing it’s charm.
Cascading down the grizzled trunk of gnarled and twisted hand
The hosting ancient Kamahi looms loftily, so grand.
Looms aloft with leafy bough so softened by the show
Of ruffled, pinkish bottle brush amassing high and low.
Hordes of buzzing, bumble bees so clumsy in their way,
Tumbling from flower to flower collecting nectar’s day.
With afternoon the waning sun lies hot on sultry air
And little girls in pretty frocks skip by with not a care.
Summer grasses long and dry stand statuesque and straight
With sweet laburnum’s perfumed heads a nodding by the gate.
Young heifers graze in clover in the dell down by the brook
And the fantail dances daintily seeking insects in the nook
There’s a special, quiet majesty pervading here, so fair
With the thistledown afloat, so still with golden motes in air.
Fills my soul with gentle feeling and a rolling tear, unplanned,
For this blend of quiet ambivalence through my beauteous rural land.
Marshalg
“Foxglove” Taranaki.
NEW ZEALAND.
19 January 2014
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
In a far distance land, away from humans
There you can see a great forest of beauty
A dense forest with moist green moss
And mighty trees stand proud in its green leaves
Under the warm breeze of the summer season;
If you go deeper unto the green land,
Beyond the tall trees and silence of the forest
You'll see a wondrous place a city can never offer
Because you'll see what nature's true beauty is;
There you can see diversity in animals and plants;
Somewhere into the forest, a creature can be seen
They are free to roam around in their own habitat
And as nighttime comes, they retreat to their homes
Into their own dens for shelter, protection and comfort
As they sleep and wait for the sun rises in the morning;
I honestly say they are truly a majestic creatures
Called Grizzly Bear also know as Brown Bear
They are species of mammals with interesting behavior
For they hunt and mate in the warm breeze
And hibernate in the cold winter season;
Grizzly Bear also have unique characteristics:
Because of the white tips found in their furs
Especially in the shoulders and back part,
It creates an illusion of being grizzled;
Hence the name Grizzly bear was given;
Grizzly Bears are omnivores, a plant and meat eater;
They are large, they are hunters, they can fish salmon;
They enjoy eating berries and nuts in the forest;
They are brown and huggable creatures
But don't dare hug them;
A Grizzly Mother Bears are great parents too
Like any devoted mothers, they teaches their young;
Mothers taught cubs to dig and hunt with their claws
Also how to stand up tall in their two legs!
Like how a adult Grizzly Bear living in the forest should be.
Apr 21, 2019
Apr 21, 2019 at 5:29 PM UTC
Who could be content
with this wretched world
religions bribe
death; bovine silence
tears at my beating red heart
without passions arc
there would only be rational thought
and grizzled earth
arctic cold
poetry beats the gravity
of this rock
deepens the mouth of inspiration
worming through
the machinery of desperation
like Jesus floats
eloquence it's revenge
a helpless idol
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
Cheers to the one that
finally makes it work, the
time the door stayed wide long
enough for a fall breeze in loafers or
corduroy pants to blow down the
walls of your heart and sit you
down on his patent leather futon
the laugh that stuck around to do
battle with every grizzled teardrop in the
middle of the afternoon
the chance worth taking because all
things can be generalized, but the
best can break free
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 10:52 PM UTC
knitted on a dodgy bobble hat
or a favourite chunky jumper
from scandanavia, or yorkshire
untasteful but definitely practical..
smelly and friendly like a wet dog
pliable like warm playdoh...
patulioi oil
will always remind me of you...
'a hippy place in my heart...'
like a beachnut,
no, a beach hut
shelves littered with the flotsam of our throwaway society,
flip flop corner...
19:10
some random hermit crab making his escape from
the dripping bundle of just found fishing net
down through the crack in the floor...
into the sand
and back to the sea.
the moths and midges gravitate towards the fossils and rock shelf
because that's where the gaslamp gently hisses.
suncracked and faded
pieces of
70's buckets and spades flicker in the corner
between the scraps of rope
and the deflated inflatables
and the bottlecap damian hurst
next to sea purse corner,
biological tendrils contrasting the ever stoic rubber ducks
who escaped from the pacific gyre...
panning around, the smartphone registers,
the garish tatty windbreak
and the 90's ghettoblaster
which still has some juice left from those batteries
we bought at the gift shop...
last year...
for our imaginary beach hut....
in the outer hebrides...?
you take the camping gaz from the cupboard
and put the kettle on...
the beach is desert island white
the sea azure like a gaudy 70's postcard
the wind tugging relentless through our hair.
but the pub is warm and friendly
where grizzled fishermen philosophise
hardily. by the fire.
between warming shots of smokey single malt.
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 6:47 PM UTC
I watched my very own
Charles Bukowski
eat a tangerine outside of
the arthouse
where we were reading.
His name is not really Bukowski,
but he has told tales in the same
vein as the Laureate of Drunkards
for longer than I have been alive.
I have listened to that same back alley
patois,
and barroom wisdom for long
enough that I feel a certain level
of comfort in calling the old gizzard
this municipality's own
Charles Bukowski.
The grizzled old poet
is telling wanton tales
of love and honeydew.
He goes on and on,
recounting the times
that he's drunk
strong potato liquor
with Bengal tigers
in the backseats
of roaring taxis
on his way to parties
hosted by zebras and
gazelles.
We each light a cigarette,
pausing to smoke for a while.
Seeking to continue
the conversation with
my salty comrade,
yet knowing my own
stories cannot compete,
I surge onward nonetheless.
His interruptions jam my
traffic before I can even make
it onto the onramp of his
particular, peculiar highway.
His mouth is already working,
though his tangerine consumed.
He's chewing his next story into
digestible, deliverable bits.
And, now he's chewing the rind.
His mouth,
his words,
his life,
and my own for all of it,
is full of
zest.
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017 at 7:52 PM UTC
I feel the breeze of purple skied nights
sirens fading out down the street
taxi horns blaring impatiently
tungsten, incandescent, fluorescent
lights bouncing off brick walls
bums curled up on stone ledges
with a waterfront, riverside, view
towers stand erect—giant *****
of steel and mortar penetrating
the sweet pink innocence of the
clouds reflecting the light below
tourists meandering with companions
obtaining a glimpse of the night
life pushed aside by hurried natives
young college students starting their
***** trips at vibrant, overpriced, clubs
bitter grizzled men starting their
***** trips at dull, weathered, local bars
both shaking off the buzz moving
onto complete drunkenness
the taste of food and sewage
mixed into the humid air
live music playing in Millennium Park
while children play and laugh in the
artistic structures unknowing of the
value and beauty attributed
looking for amusement
the city’s reflection vainly warped
by the curved polished metal surface
of the Bean, crowds mesmerized by
simple tricks of light reflecting the
twisted narcissism of those caught
up in the city’s hedonism
warm breezes roll into
the shore and marina
from the sea-like lake
well-to-do travelers
recording through the curved
lenses of expensive digital cameras
their trifling, yet
extravagant adventures
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 12:40 PM UTC
a voice thick and grizzled
soaked in a deep bourbon for countless years
taken out to be dried in a once burnt smokehouse
then shot twice with rock salt and hit by a '56 Chevy
a voice to be raised too
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 11:04 PM UTC
Her wide-brim hat was pointed, and worn with ne'er a tilt
Her midnight robe was flowing, and wove from satin silk
Her Besom broom was hazel-hilted, twigged with fresh cut birch
As she flew o'er the hill, until she spied a rocky perch
The hill was trapped in moons light, caught in its silken nets
And grizzled trees were swaying casting eerie silhouettes
A howling wind came moaning, as it wailed a haunting sound
When her swishing broom came whooshing, as she swept o'er the ground
She alighted on the hill top, landing dainty on her toes
And took a tattered grimoire which she held up to her nose
She raised a magic talisman and cast an ancient spell
Then she waited through the gloaming, till midnight chimed its bell
The hill stood gravely silent, as the wind restrained its breath
The grass and flowers wilted and released their scent of death
The shadows neath the trees became alive and took on shape
And ghostly figures rose, as Hallows Eve called them awake
The sounds of horse drawn carriages, came trundling up the hill
Whilst babbling jeering voices exorcised the silent still
A sudden gust of wind called out the names of those condemned
Each manacled and chained up, as they rode to meet their end
As time echoed its memories, she watched the scene unfold
The victims forced unwillingly, to climb upon the scaffold
Some offered up the Lord’s Prayer, and ne'er a word was stumbled
They took a final breath of life, and into hell they tumbled
Their bodies swung ungainly, as they swayed a ghastly dance
With lifeless spectral faces locked into a stone-like trance
Their deathly shrouds were pale, reflected in moons silken sheen
And she watched as they cavorted, ne'er attempt to intervene
They slunk back into shadows, at the fading of the night
The hill reprieved from darkness by the early morning light
The ritual was completed, as she whispered them goodbye
And she climbed onto her hazel broom and kicked into the sky
On Gallows Hill neath stars and moon they hung
And ne'er a one had done the world a wrong
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
The right eye
is the window of hope
the left eye
the window of despair
And this proposition
is proven in my photograph
a portrait of a grizzled guy
taken just before
he stepped in front of a speeding car
while gesticulating wildly
Who knows what happened there?
Yet I will live!
gather fallen timbers
to form a stockade
against time
Because finally
I have discovered
that time is not my friend
It's a simple game she plays
time girl
trickster girl
but my ancient beams
will prevail
I swear it
by a handful of ash
and mark the moment
with a rune that exists
outside of time
and says simply
Be this.
You were forever thus.
It's a difficult rune to read
and a harder path
to follow.
May 3, 2017
May 3, 2017 at 8:52 PM UTC
Going back out,
that's what he fears most.
To resume his last
miserable drunk,
homeless, loveless, broke.
Scratching up money for a fifth
of whatever he's drinking
- ***** when he's semi-flush,
cheap wine when he's not.
Lacking the guile to beg or steal,
he washes dishes in a dive
for a meal and a bottle,
sweeps out bars for drinks,
knowing he can't hold a job
much longer than a day.
Scavenging cigarette butts
from barroom trash cans.
No place to get out of the cold
except for the missions
and flop houses.
And he hates the flop houses
with their toothless managers
spreading their shit-eating grins.
He dreads the city winter
as the cold seeps in and wraps
its tendrils around him,
and he fears seeing one more
sooty gray dawn with grizzled men
like himself mindlessly shuffling,
searching for the next drink.
He fears the back alleys,
fears he's destined
to live in their filth, huddled
in whatever hole or box he can find.
No longer caring for himself,
just craving alcohol.
That insatiable craving.
And it's the grayness he fears,
the empty, pallid expanse
of his remaining years
and losing people who
used to love him.
He's frightened of going out
and not coming back.
And he fears thoughts of suicide.
He has no answers to why he drinks,
why he gives in to the bottle.
His mind cannot or will not grasp
that final thought.
---
Sep 13, 2011
Sep 13, 2011 at 10:54 AM UTC
The edge of that razor smarts. A tight pinch as it moves from hair to skin, breaking both with the ease of sin. Four blades of mighty steel glory, waging a war on the fields of my hollow cheeks. Old soldiers armed with nought but swords, old iron and ruined shields. That razor had been through a **** storm, been with me for so long. I could change it, replace its crude coarse blades, its worn and ragged handle. I could buy a machine so sleek that it would rend hair from skin and flesh from bone. But I like this grizzled construct of rough steel and chipped plastic. This ******* knew me as a stranger before he embraced me as a brother. I like him. Him and his manic chip toothed metal grin. I've got friends like him, not many still breathing but they count. Old broken things still ticking well past they're expiration date. I've got brothers in arms and brothers in caskets too. Strangers turned friends turned brethren and then dead again. I've seen too many faces fade from life to dust. It is not in god, but a razor's edge that I trust.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC
Armageddon in a bowl
Thunder gallops, waters roll
Countless wolves howl in the sky
Blow down houses, growl and cry
Matt grey sky like old stale paint
Sobs like son of slaughtered saint
Weather wails, laments the day
Soaks the cliffs in tears of spray
Sky and sea both boil in rage
Tragedy on sand strewn stage
Scrawl a picture with the storm
Carve coast into madman form
Bitter chill bites scarce seen boat
Struggling to stay afloat
Placid place this never was
Peace, serene, unknown to us
Yet still we flock to headland’s edge
Gosling spirits here will fledge
Grizzled veteran surfer sorts
Breach the brine upon their boards
We stand rigid, bodies glow
Defiant ‘gainst the hammer blow
Gripping Gore-tex, clutching cloth
Cowering from the furious froth
Backs bent crooked, faces skinned
By razor rain and whip lash wind
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 3:49 PM UTC
#7 from Geo-Bestiary
O that girl, only young men
dare to look at her directly
while I manage the most side-long of glances:
olive-skinned with a Modigliani throat,
lustrous obsidian hair, the narrowest
of waists and high french bottom, ample
******* she tries to hide in a loose blouse.
Though Latino her profile is from a Babylonian
frieze and when she walks with her small white dog
with brown spots she fairly floats along,
looking neither left nor right, meeting no one's
glance as if beauty was a curse. In the grocery
store when I drew close her scent was jacaranda,
the tropical flower that makes no excuses.
The geezer's heart swells stupidly to the dampish
promise. I walk too often in the cold shadow
of the mountain wall up in the arroyo behind the house.
Empty pages are dry ice, numbing the hands and heart.
If I weep I do so in the shower so that no one,
not even I can tell. To see her is to feel
time's cold machete against my grizzled neck,
puzzled that again beauty has found her home in threat.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 7:47 AM UTC
Grizzled-brown sound of tuba walking,
In the way of circles you wobble step, inverse,
As does a broken waltz, bearly graceful.
You sniff your way a crush alpine meadows
And making sense for you are lowly berries,
Rude as any intruder might be in the foothills
Of the Gods. 'More wine for the great Polyphemus,'
Say the drunk brambles, brighty doomed sailors
All a wash by behemothing jaws which hang
Them over. Yet Ursa, if in minor you must play
By the cosmos' stilted view, great major, it is they
Who glare more distant, as if you really cared.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 5:00 PM UTC
My demons, the colossus of slaughter
and infantile undoing
are draped as a jagged carcass of a wreath,
of twisted and malignant ****** limbs,
upon my shoulders and stark throat
dripping stagnant
as a mangled bear of grizzled fur and barbed wire,
I heave this colossal mane
my sanctioned torturing ever heaven bearing,
legs biting tension, tibias finally cracking
I trudge, seethe and scourge with limbs
far rusted and burdened,
the girth of my weighing
wreath of clotted bone and blood,
mammoth corpse of whale and boorish bear,
hunker down about these broken hinged blades of shoulder,
godly cloak of human sin, and iron curtain
my siphoned lungs drain about the ground
dripping from the flesh of my lips,
spilling out as life,
I cough and purge all my mortal given organs
upon the belly of the Earth,
wreath of anchor chain and rotted animal bulk
bar and breach this shrapnel spine,
legs splintered,
no man might carry,
only a corpse could accept
the wearing weight of the worlds sins,
I forever stammer on
Sep 8, 2011
Sep 8, 2011 at 1:10 AM UTC