"harrows" poems
In conversation about
the realities of War
a salient observation
surfaced again and
yet again - that current
creators of film or TV
images favour clean,
so fail the filth test
that for troops and those
who tend them once
bullets & shells have
wrought their harm
scar everywhere with
muck & misery - such
crisp white pinafores
and hair so carefully
coiffeured just never
figured - real warfare
harrows like The Victors
& D-Day scenes which
open Saving Private Ryan
as bloodily as any wound.
(c) C J Heyworth June 2014
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
As these forlorn cadences await- unfold
To compose a disbanded vow
Yielding unto harrows of gates untold
Charms death to disdainful plow
Death is plowed to a forgiving halt
While silver moonlight and whiskey dances remain
Glittering gold in this crimson vault-
Feeble souls conjure grace as graceless minds abstain
Counterfeit conceits ravish this open cellar
As the night’s last dance ceases to a disgraceful plea
The dweller’s disdain is akin to my killer
And heaven yields blood to salt the earth for thee
Come away now with your anguishing defeats
Seek not a jagged spike as the heaven’s conspire and wake
Glory and gold may turn us black as deceit
But deception admonishes the dancers in their quake
Spellbound nuances of this reality await at every turn
Mourning and fighting the finality of this grave
Orchestrated knives are rosined like honey, beckoning our blood to burn
At last, a burning reckoning comes to ravage the brave
But refrain, oh killer- host of this crimson vault
Enlist a memoir for our sins
Recalling the pieties of our gracious faults,
Enough to make this blood go thin.
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 9:08 PM UTC
The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road; and spreading far and wide
Above the russet clods, the corn is seen
Sprouting its spiry points of tender green,
Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake,
Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.
Opening their golden caskets to the sun,
The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,
To see who shall be first to pluck the prize—
Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies,
And o’er her half-formed nest, with happy wings
Winnows the air, till in the cloud she sings,
Then hangs a dust-spot in the sunny skies,
And drops, and drops, till in her nest she lies,
Which they unheeded passed—not dreaming then
That birds which flew so high would drop agen
To nests upon the ground, which anything
May come at to destroy. Had they the wing
Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud,
And build on nothing but a passing cloud!
As free from danger as the heavens are free
From pain and toil, there would they build and be,
And sail about the world to scenes unheard
Of and unseen—Oh, were they but a bird!
So think they, while they listen to its song,
And smile and fancy and so pass along;
While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,
Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.
2k
There's a thought that haunts me
In the mornings
When the sun peeks through the curtains
And it blinds me
And the coffee is burnt
So I take a morning dose of
Smoke to mute my taste buds
It haunts me at work
Where my smile is as fake
As the honey tone of my voice
But they'll believe it
And buy two for two fifty anyway
Because I've asked them oh so
Nicely
It plagues me in the evening
When I've settled down with a brush
In my hand
Painting abstract strokes with
No road map
No idea where they're going
Just a current of blending colors
And lines
It strikes me at night
When I'm closing my eyes
And willing myself to sleep
Though the sheep don't run home
Because the path is drenched
In regret
That thought
Which haunts me
And itches at me
And runs laps through my mind
Is that I've never felt peace
In someone's arms
Never felt so fulfilled
To touch someone
Never had words powerful
Enough to describe it
The thought that harrows me
In all the hours I know
Is that I've never known
Love
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 2:48 AM UTC
Sometimes the low-lying clouds are a call.
You've never heard it before.
It harrows through you like a train
but lingers even while it gathers itself
while it rushes.
Or a voice, so requiring of you to hear it
one minute it runs recklessly, a little boy,
it has no cares,
casting itself among the trees.
Then, stops all of a sudden
intent on play. You watch
as it takes each green into its hands,
as it turns each leaf over and over
until each is a small black bell.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 6:32 PM UTC
A lizard's tail,
dew in the night.
Ambrosia from the gods.
A drop of a
mermaid's tear.
This is Floccus Magni.
Shadows of the dead,
harrows of the living.
Joys of the darkness,
terrors of the light.
Let's entangle ourselves in lace.
While you leave trails of swelling bliss.
When all seems lost, it can be found.
I'm crazy because of the dead silence.
Dec 28, 2018
Dec 28, 2018 at 11:43 PM UTC
How many men make or brake the barriers?
How many more move forward as the carriers
of the message? The presage of the black dark future.
When society is wounded who'll be dressing the sutures?
Those in suits blur truth across the canvas,
Then paint over it with blood from the youth and the savages.
Ravaging for innocent civilians, to apply the bandages.
While the man in the suit counts the loot as he micro manages.
Feed them Faceless, Tasteless food for thought.
Get them Pacing laceless- racing to be caught
red handed, then remanded in custody to rot
in a cell, dwelling on how poorly they fought.
Not to quick to mention their desire for redemption.
The lesson is learned until it's consumed your whole attention
span, quick make a plan- confessing that you're a bad man
Don't change the fact that you were sweating as you ran man.
Who's this man? Who's lurking in the shadows?
The search narrows- he's found hanging from the gallows.
This harrows the whole world for a whirlwind minute.
Until the media man has had enough chance to spin it.
"He was a reprehensible, dispensable shell of human.
His soul had creeped out after years of consuming
peoples fears, then blaring it back into their ears.
He was mole for manics, spreading panic to the assuming"
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 11:06 AM UTC
Restless eyes batted senselessly keep me awake.
Numbing illusion grabs hold of my feeble mind and I weep at the thought of my own destruction.
"Savior, savior, where art thou?
Hast thou left me to my own devices?"
Trouble, trouble, all around.
Madness wreaks my daunted mind
Shadows leap the unkept room
Dance back to canto ye demons of old!
Ravishing through the harrows of an untidy brain
Checking for sanity, what little remains,
The pace quickens
The plot thickens
It's madness in the mind of a passerby!
I see a helpless fellow,
Whose wings are too heavy to let him fly
And his heart too weary to let him abandon his own mortality.
Fool, I say.
Fool for being so careless, where he puts his love.
Should be kept in a sacred jar
And locked away.
"Nay nay" stranger overhears,
"My heart was right
My heart was just,
I must fight to win what I call mine for love is only given to those who fight for it."
I let him live his fantasy,
Poor boy who committed too many crimes and only wants more chances.
However, I think, persistence is rewarded to those with justice in their hearts.
I think it not too heavy after all.
And then I wake in the treacherous night
To realize that the boy
Was me.
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
There are fireflies in the garden during the dawn
and the moon, till the day, stays
hung over shuttered windows like some
homeless
hopeless looking for love.
You turned my world onto its head
and brought me down in chains; now
bubbling the last of me in some
Chinese torture chamber of love
in a dark room of your mother's house
full of the horrors of your childhood
and your children.
You scar this skin like I can go out
wearing every verse that escaped your tongue
like a trophy fallen to dust:
gone sheen, glory and all.
Rivers are finally flowing backward
and I swear I saw pigs fly
in a sky as pink as the lips of you on your glass of venom.
Galleries of art are slipping into the street
because masterpieces were absolutely
nothing when it came to the abstracts
of brilliance and dark you could create
by the harrows of your mind.
I was no story teller and
I could never put you to sleep.
So you slip away from my bed, mind, heart and hand.
And it tastes like a broken marriage
too hot on the tongue
and too far gone to believe
it could become unmended.
Rain sometimes falls in numbers
one here, twice there.
On me
all at once, all the time.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 11:53 PM UTC
Angel,
fallen from on high, to shine ethreal light, just above the face of I who am blessed.
That your decention is made harrows the mind,
but blind bliss covers any reason like sugar.
That you look on me with those golden cloud eyes,
precious is your gaze,
is magic in itself. It's something that had been impossible in the flightiest dream of the latest night.
What my own eyes behold, as much as such things may hold burning beauty,
are more thankful than I could ever hope to say.
Darling Angel,
could you find it in your own to gift me with your words?
Through the times that I've been graced with these pearls,
through the glamour of it all, I've begun to realize what your words are really like.
Dark, lush rose petals,
stumble and flow from behind your teeth,
filling your tounge with plump redness that soothes my ears,
and captures the curves and sways of my heart.
Like a sunrise or washing tide, this feeling that pulls at my throat and chest leaves me almost breathless, creating a bridge of tangible tension supported by our locking eyes. With each attempt to express what mortal words I may stutter, my breath leaves me just as quickly as I attempt to speak, building our silent bond.
Jun 5, 2010
Jun 5, 2010 at 1:31 PM UTC
*Agitation taking over
The minds eye is blurred
Rationality doesn't appeal
Maybe I need a release
But can it be allowed?
The consequences can be varied
Moving on a spectrum narrow
Narrow on the verge of binary
Binary can confuse
Leaving one suspended in between
To whom should one turn
In this time of perplexity
How bad can the other side be?
At least there would be a surety
That blocked is the way
That lost is the cause
But the pain that would follow
The thought of it harrows
Strength is what I need
Brave I have to be*
Jul 17, 2016
Jul 17, 2016 at 7:01 AM UTC
Time slips through the Hands
like Water,
free and continually flowing
This River, swimming swift Southward,
heeds no command but the One from the
Blanched Lips
of Mother Nature.
Mother's Mistress--Fate--harrows
the trunks of Trees
so that they
fall
across Time's bank into the Stream
Unstagnated, the River still rushes
past the dead wood
Further, Deeper
into the Forest,
seeking the Ocean and its Sweet Embrace
Where
All
Stops.
Apr 21, 2012
Apr 21, 2012 at 8:30 PM UTC
Nationwide Insurance twas on my side yay
cuz, earlier this July forth
two thousand eighteen ja way
windows closed, doors locked, and
car keys visibly splayed
on driver seat oye vay
feel free to call me a horse's *** today
utter anxiety compounded,
plus unable to locate master key,
thence fodder for poem and more to say
rifling thru boxes without success,
an impulse arose to call road
upon learning policy
doth include locksmith service,
ah felt less doggone snappish,
and uttered hoo ray
though modest aye,
congratulated awesome,
fulsome, and handsome
self on quick thinking,
and automatically became less tiresome
pondering for no particular rhyme nor reason
(as a getaway) Panama or Paraguay
then immediate decided,
sans ditto explanation,
but no how and nay
yet honest to dog suddenly felt
like a young lovestruck lad
during month of May
and without further delay
a compulsion arose
to putter along, though
momentarily gazing heavenward
and counting (just beak caws)
glistening black crows
plus painfully aware
a spike in recurrent
"senior" moment of forgetfulness grows,
thus starkly aware significant rustiness
increasingly, frightfully,
and chokingly coats
lix spit tillage harrows
resuming schlepping dishabille
crotchety bedeviled aching
body electric irksome
with fringe benefit (such as
momentary lapse of reason)
quite aware mettlesome
ness of youth nonrefundable,
non-reliable, and non-retrievable,
and guaranteed continued
pricking, viz nettlesome
degenerating aging telomeres,
sensate perspicuity, and oxysomes
leaving a once robust person some
what discombobulated
and easily toilsome.
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 7:39 PM UTC
The sea laments while the hooded
moon he harrows
Harrows the countless unknown
graves of men
Who fell among stormy seas,
Men who today are remembered still
By tall stories
Told in their honour to bedtime
children
Before they journey out to sleep
Into the wide realms of imagery,
colourful and wild,
Breathing shadows onto a night of
deserted streets
Drenched black slates and steeples.
Sep 19, 2019
Sep 19, 2019 at 2:28 AM UTC
You be on your side
I'll be on my side
In between there is a book
The Book of Black Holes
You sling your arrows
I'll dodge the harrows
And then I'll record it in
The Book of Black Holes
There be many pages
That goes through many stages
In the end you may find it in
The Book of Black Holes
If it's a five or ten
Even a zero I win
And I have recorded it in
The Book of Black Holes
Your comments cryptic
Your words haze , eliptic
And like I said goes down in
The Book of Black Holes
Your choice to be insipid
Your dreams are too timid
Compared to what's collected in
The Book of Black Holes
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 9:12 AM UTC
Dreams echo in stone walls
Dull sounds like shadows sink
The depth-less mirrors line cold halls
Tomorrows Fall to loss, while I think
There were words, they say
And harrows seemed too, to quake
Emotions drawn on the blank day
And no feelings felt could ever, shown state
Decay like those thoughts
And light shines beyond the wake
Folds in fabric ,free break
And laughter fades with life taught
Showers and shudders from light
And visits from thunderous knowings to,
And earth breaks while beyond strain
Yet eyes smile like learning through
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 9:27 PM UTC
The cold is razor sharp, but my knife cuts deeper still.
As sinews rip apart, my future bends anew.
They may call it crime, but who are they to judge?
It’s a fight to stay alive, and it’s worth a sacrifice.
As every light goes out, I whistle my way home
My spirit is resolved. This tragedy none will solve.
The next day in my flat, as I count my newfound wealth,
I laugh at all the prats dressed head to toe in black.
It fills my heart with glee when a summons finds my door
The court must find guilt of one oddly resembling me.
Those fools with the wigs run their mouths for days and nights,
Presenting “facts” and defendant's “rights” while common sense they lack.
For quite some time I sit content while no one dares suspect.
But mad disease starts to infect when I see how that poor man still pleads...
As trials drone on for weeks lacking release,
I feel myself slip into something like grief-
I’m weak at the seams whenever I sleep,
the ghosts of my victims haunt every dream.
When judgment is cast, I don’t make a sound,
all is rustling of paper and staring at ground.
“Confess,” breathes a demon, my soul harrows in fear.
But frozen I’m found
As the gavel
Comes
Down.
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 4:43 PM UTC
Deep seated pain that pulls at the strings of the heart
Harrows the mind with grotesque music
Which mimics the voices of a thousand groaning ghosts
Reducing the afflicted one to a silent madness
Lost in thoughts riddled with the images of a life of twisted torture
And eyes staring fixedly into nothing, as it seems, as tears flow freely
To mourn a life that will not pass
Now craving death, could it be the answer?
Back and forth within herself the questions resonate
How will this end? Will an end of this be ever known to me?
And instead of answers she only hears the echoing gong
Of an unsoundly noise so utterly disheartening that
The emptiness of it gnaws into her spirit
Snubbing out whatever light is left to show for any memory of happiness
So that even the fleeting curl of a smile is but a hopeless longing for her face
A paling canvass etched with the likeness of misery
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 8:11 AM UTC