"hardily" poems
- Joseph Childress
Soft words
Are usually preferred
During pillow talks
Foolishly
I foolheartledly
Brought hard words
Harsh
& Disturbed
Which
Hardily makes sense
Since
Your sentiment
Didn't deserve
The sediment
Provided
From my concrete heart
I argue
Our argument
Was all my fault
I dumped asphalt
On the sandy beach
You provided
For our sweet retreat
You retrieved
My roughness
And smoothed
The edgy conversation
Tamed my
Toughness
And soothed
The painful consternation
You could
Ease the temperament
And impatience
Of anger management patients
All the while
Showing
The peacefulness in his
War within
Finding righteousness
In his right to yell
You respect
His freedom of speech
But with each
Negative comment
You seek
To find
The positive content
In the layers beneath
You see the beauty
In the mess
Like an abstract painting
Made for the
Artistically elite
My poor sense
Of creativity
Is lifted
From your richness
I dropped
Destruction
But always
Pick it
Back up
Like bad habits
Rehabilitate me this
Last time
And I promise
I’ll never
Cast a shadow again
I’ll shine
In every way
I direct my attention
Hopefully
Its not too late
But knowing you
My lateness
Will be welcomed
Like a homecoming
You seldom
Look at my faults
And not find
Greatness
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 8:21 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
Seven New Poems For Seven Days #6 & 7: Live like you're dying
Perhaps you know the lyric, the song?
Live like your dying.
Dying caught my ear, my eye, can't imagine why.
Con-Textual emendation, Natalino style.
Live like your writing.
Yes, that makes sense...
Embrace with passion each new session
Charge every second stanza with ruminating rhythms,
Cut the wires to the air traffic control sensory tower, go solo,
Pulse each word, beat all into a plowshare, even the anger,
Even the hate, dressed to **** in words, forgivable...
Grant the mundane, the insane, even the pain of tragedy,
You refuse so hardily to glorify, grant it and
Record it all - a moment,
A royal audience with all
Your writing parts.
No fancy footing, keep it simple.
No jesters in rain puddles,
Let images of clouds of sand
Born and perish in other's eyes and sighs, let verbal games bedevil other
Wooden puppet princes drinking fairy ales.
Huh?
Write clean and clear,
Let the sheerest wonderment of a new combination,
Be the titillation of the tongue's alliteration,
No head scratching at oblique verbal gestation,
Let words clear speak, each letter a speck,
That gives and grants clarification, sensational.
You, afternoon quenching Coronas, white T shirts,
Sun glazes and later, a summer eve's Sancerre,
Wave gazing on the reality of rusted beach chairs,
Babies sandy naked, washed in waves of Chardonnay,
The traffic-filled word-way highways and bay ways,
Exiting at the Poet's Nook, for exegesis & retrieval.
Write of:
Body shakes and juices, skin-staining tongues,
Taking her, afternoon, unexpectedly, her noises your derring-do!
Broken tear ducts, the Off switch, so busted, write about
Real stuff.
Write not in fear of dying
Angels delivering bad news in vacuum tubes,
Write joyous, psalms of loving life,
Live like your writing,
Write like your living,
So you may die well.
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 6:06 PM UTC
how is the weather today,
the inquiry semi-formally, mumbly delivered
(in pj's, eyes closed, body turned away)
and I softly smile for somewhere here
the poet-boy once wrote
"all my poems begin with weather"
and the composing begins, which of course,
is the decomposing of me-pieces
into nanosecond emotions
that each becomes a verses
until a certain voice
wise whispers "no mas"
my reply, nano bytes of me,
is a forecast personal and tailored
to our GPS location,
the bedroom
"Swami says
looking inside, outside too,
report and retort
it appears quite nice,"
(quietly semi-whispering,
100% chance of snuggling, followed by severe
love making, its arrival foreshadowed by lighting biting and
foot rubbing, and licking winds of heaving breathing,
conditions, we explorers of the caves and local mounts
so oft encounter on our Atlantic captive isle,
and bravely sally forth to face its bullets of kicks 'n kisses)
from under the covers,
we hear swarming,
warning bolts of
snorting derision
but this fire eating ,
most fearsome
nostrillian, reptilian morning beastie noise,
we hardy sailors hardily choose to ignore
but lack of detail is unappreciated so our response amended:
"looking outside, report and retort
it appears quite nice, with 100% chance
of showers of coffee and kisses"
which earns me a sweetie kick
all my poems, the poet-man once wrote,
"all my poems end with whether"
*apparently, this one as well.
oh well, oh well!*
7/8/17 8:14am
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 8:22 AM UTC
There will be tears reminiscent to seas
Salt water
Body of lies
Forming to make there way through
Rocks and hard places
Through time they cut
And **** up
The thoughts of tough
I trust
You’ll never trust
Us
But you remain in the picture
The pitcher
Has just enough
Liquor to leave me
Left
Right
Beside myself
Sometimes
I get beside myself
And me and I
Rather I and me
Stand alone
With the unknown
Women eyeing me
I’m trying to see them
For who they are
Yet,
Your eyes are all I see
Icy hearts are hard to warm
It hardily harms me
And scarcely scars
Or even scares you
Because we are
Emotionless vultures in a cult that preys
On cultures
That cultivate true feelings of love
We contour their beliefs
With our tongue in cheek
Expressions
Learnt from lessons
We had in adolescence
Will we ever truly grow?
Or will we just
Say **** it
And bring the world down
With us?
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
They deposed of laughter in the rain
listened on this terrain
in their awful pegs retentive clamour
while dark gruesome hours descended
as them that didn't willingly tie for their enamor
while flatulence then finally was hardily retorted in debate
yet their nostalgia doom relived this planet in this luxury then so they'd flatten this inn divide
while in lies that pack frozen in their teeth
Sep 20, 2017
Sep 20, 2017 at 8:58 AM UTC
Heroic horses hammering holy heaven,
Hooves hounding, horseshoes howling,
Hot heads hurtling headlong on the horizon,
Handsomest horses hacking habitually,
Hugely-hung hoses hanging out hellishly,
Hardy and hardening, heartily heartening,
Harping at heartstrings, harmonious harkening.
Hades the hell-spawn harnessing hedonism,
Heckling horses, harassing the harmony,
Hot-blooded horses, huffy and hungrily,
Hearken the hell-dog, hail him and hallow him,
Hellbent and heinous, horse hearts are harvested,
Hundreds of horses haemorrhage helplessly,
Harrowing Hellscape, hostile humidity,
Haggardly horses hunching haphazardly,
Half-dead and hateful, harshly and hardily,
Hardhearted horses hurting and hurtling,
Heroes of history, humbled in hopelessness,
Holiest horses, howling and hollering -
Heeding honor! Hailing Hell!
Jun 25, 2025
Jun 25, 2025 at 1:25 PM UTC
As armed ants advance
Beautifully beyond blasted borders,
Crazed caterpillars create
Demoralizing defenses
Engineered effectively.
Fiery fights form
Gracefully. Gleaming gear
Hints hardily
In ill-prepared insect incisors.
Jowls juice. Just
Keep killing. Keep killing.
Lordly lust leaps, leading
Maniacal maggots mercilessly.
Not nearly neat nature now. Nasty new-horror negates
Original order. Overlords order;
Paternal pressure pokes
Quills quintessential,
Reaching re-riled responders. Rest rowdily royal
Slaves. Soon shrill sounds shout silently. Sun-break signals
Too-terrifying travesty
Under umbrella’d
Vulcanism. Voracious vulgarities
Wrap war wistfully whilst
Xeroxed Xanadus
Yearn yearlong. Yawing
Zephyrus’ zeppelin: zephyrs zoom zilched zealots.
Jan 7, 2020
Jan 7, 2020 at 6:21 AM UTC