"hefting" poems
This is winter, this is night, small love --
A sort of black horsehair,
A rough, dumb country stuff
Steeled with the sheen
Of what green stars can make it to our gate.
I hold you on my arm.
It is very late.
The dull bells tongue the hour.
The mirror floats us at one candle power.
This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey radiance that seems to breathe
And lets our shadows wither
Only to blow
Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.
One match scratch makes you real.
At first the candle will not bloom at all --
It snuffs its bud
To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.
I hold my breath until you creak to life,
Balled hedgehog,
Small and cross. The yellow knife
Grows tall. You clutch your bars.
My singing makes you roar.
I rock you like a boat
Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor,
While the brass man
Kneels, back bent, as best he can
Hefting his white pillar with the light
That keeps the sky at bay,
The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!
He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --
Poor heirloom, all you have,
At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,
No child, no wife.
Five ***** Five bright brass *****
To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.
9k
She leans over the stick,
Hefting her full weight and thumping
--step by step--
across the room.
Once, she used to gallop lightly.
She ran track,
played basketball.
She always assumed that life would bring her
marvelous deeds,
That time would equate to glory and fame.
But the clock ticked the minutes away.
Days passed,
Years flew by.
Glory and fame never came.
Instead, age crippled her once lithe body.
And the deeds she accomplished were wondrous only to her own
Failing
Eyes.
For she rejoiced every time she made it,
--step by step--
Cane in hand,
Across the room.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 8:47 AM UTC
He knows what lies below.
This is where it all began: here
Beneath the bubbling sludge and ******* mud.
This is the home brew, the cocooning grounds.
His sturdy boots trudge through,
Hefting questions and glasses askew.
Somewhere to the side a fat swamp prince
Composes bog rhymes in ribbit meter.
Each squelching step sets a buzzing bunch
Of crystal dragons zipping away to
Slick peridot pontoons. A loon swoons
The expeditioner with a sobbing cry. He
Has said goodbye to reservations, to the
Long-dead preservation rights. He slogs through
The buzzing night. Yellow daggers clench
Between scaly steeltrap snappers and stones
With eyes blink in languid surprise, unnoticed.
He is lost, dying, unsure of his quest. He needs a
Cure. He knows it lies here, in the beginning place.
Their faces haunt his deathly guts and crush
His straining heart with need - need for the solution.
Need to survive, to prolong his life - alone!
So alone: the last. If only he could rest.
His nostrils quiver with the homesick stench
Of tails becoming legs and nipping lips sprouting
Sticky tongues. The answer, he is here for the
Only answer. Something below, below, down
In the dredges of history - in the slime of
Centuries, rotless and preserved. He will find it:
Some link, some closer thing he can revive
And test and rest as bedrock for his life.
A foot sticks in the overfriendly tar. No,
He will not pause. He has come too far.
In the birthing grime, some hungry memory wakes.
It knows what lies above, it thirsts to cease it.
It reaches, roils, pulls, rips with smelly squish-fingers -
Thirsting and thirsting to slake. It longs to reveal
To show, to make known to the traveler.
(All he has searched for is found here, it knows,
Organized and close. Held and safe below)
It reaches, grabs - thirsty - presses him into
A false step. A slip. A skritching clipboard
Of statistics curses in rustling indignance
As it flutters to the mud above a splattered head.
Science-frozen lungs fill with dread -
With life-giving peat. (It will show him) He ***** in
And burbles out a scream. (what he wants, show him)
This is where it begins, (this is his dream!) where it ends.
Now he knows what lies below. He lies - curled -
Quenched from growth. The eyes of unnoticed
Stones blink in surprise. Soaring swamp lyrics
Rise, a loon swoons with a sobbing cry.
He curls in peace and drifts alone
Now he knows what lies below.
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 7:10 PM UTC
The Quiet of a Pickwickian World
By Sy Roth
In the silence of my Pickwickian world,
A transcendent quiet stands vigil.
Left to its own devices it rattles around, a
lonely brown-suited courier,
Hefting weighty cargo from one sooty corner to the next.
Seeks tranquility in a world where,
Fettered by golden reins
Hobbled by unceremonial chain mail
Lanced by coronets of thorns,
Astride, a long-in-the-tooth steed
Spurred on to wrestle shredded windmills,
A cavil of unrepentant correctors rest.
And they still come--
Tidal waves of disturbances,
Tsunamis that rip ashore and sweep all away
Into a loathsome pile,
Bilious flotsam of a generation bereft of empathy.
A forced silence clings to the dusty rafters
Where sages once stood
Hanging like KKK castoffs
In a closeted Jim Crow attic of rules and regulations gone mad.
A quiescent quiet demands quiet.
Nestles behind muffled screams
Of ages of piles of rotting flesh.
Dolorous vision of a peaceful world
Where peace packed for a long vacation
To Edens that exist only in fairy tales.
Bring with them untruths of understanding
Swaddled in ****** soiled bedclothes.
Leave me to my silence,
Lave me of the Ash Wednesday smudge
Where realities come home to roost in the dim corners
Where the highwaymen have no access.
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 8:03 AM UTC
I can only summon feelingfulness like the passing of a dove,
postponing its arrival mid-air, somewhere along the tucked
bramble across Poblacion, starting with metaphorical sensibility
or an insensibly bland space to procure wanted meaning.
Girls prefer roses and their bright foreheads diademed with more
flowers, and boys, their chiaroscuro or lack of a color thereof, seems
to be fitting in this maladroit contrast, and so I begin, as always,
with your very vague and caged memory. Your face, the whiteness
of snowcapped alps. Your strut, my slalom in a treacherous course
of words reduced to whisperings, to flutings. Your voice, though nuanced,
flitters with an overtone of arrogance: if sound was clothed, yours would
be flamboyant ermine. And the line in front of you before I, my arbitrary turn,
assimilates into a picturesque form of waiting somewhere in Cubao.
I wanted to smash myself with train-speed towards the metallic turnstile,
which, would then famish me even so, just as much as I wish to be a car crash
somewhere within the outskirts of your town, heavily vandalized by the swill
of squalor hefting itself like the rest of the world conscious of its viscera.
This is how I start you – like waiting for the sun to emerge by Borobudur,
or the clandestine *** of mildew and grass, a hundredfold of images appear
before me and I cannot choose upon my whims and caprices. Are you a dove?
A spear of Sun? A thunderous crackle of an impending rain? A harlequin?
A moseying cirrus? Or just another by-stander in the crowds where I ultimately
seek your being?
This answerlessness measures my knowledge of star, and my breath snuffed
out of me while I sigh from exhausted penchants, outweigh dissimilarities and symmetries.
A progeny from all superseding conundrums arises: are you a retrogression of a wave
back to its saltine wound, flailing in brine? Or are you just the vast sea and nothing else
on a fine and lucid day where children skip stones and chant name-callings?
I sense the peril in this undertaking, and much to my chagrin, I still
do not know how to end you.
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 3:09 AM UTC
I love her
I don't know why.
I love her,
from her soul through her eyes.
She's innocent,
at least as far as I can tell,
I love her to death,
to save me from hell.
God knows that we both love her,
but only God knows only if we're meant for each other.
So I sit here alone,
thinking to myself.
Conflicted and confused,
I sit here thinking alot, not at all amused.
God I love her
I don't know why.
So I sit here and pout, hefting one last sigh.
sigh
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 1:46 AM UTC
Sweating, hurting;
I've been working all day.
Lifting, heaving;
I don't mind, I'm strong.
Chopping, gripping;
I can take it, the pain is nothing.
Carrying, moving;
My mind starts wandering.
Raising, digging;
I say "I'm so tired..."
Pushing, straining;
Isn't that how you feel every day?
Shaking, holding;
It's cutting into my hands.
Don't deny it. You know you want to quit.
Kneeling, struggling;
Just let it go, you'll feel so much better.
Trembling, groaning;
***Drop it, **** it! Let it crush you!***
Seizing, hoisting;
I will not.
Hefting, bearing;
Yes, you will. Let the weight crush you NOW!
Shoving, throwing;
No! You can't do that! That's not fair-
Falling, relaxing;
I'm so tired, but now I can rest peacefully.
Sleeping, dreaming;
I've thrown my past away.
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 5:42 PM UTC
i scatter breadcrumbs pre-dawn as
your light draws into
this empty hemisphere: full of
life, lack of the
sweetness dwelling behind eyelid's
closure i
was awake to monitor the slivered
rim, the same stars as glow
soft around your engorging pupils.
gutterwork about fingertip traces.
i can almost see
your ghost. no smoke entices
my lips, not yet. i've
no need to any longer sing
of meaningless vices. i've
got bigger things hefting
weight over my shoulders. i'm
running short of endlessness.
yet, from the guts of this library
some lie dissolves.
my body vanishes through painted
concourse. the finer points scatter.
the big picture rushes to shake
hands, to distil spine. between
us, there ain't nothin' new
anywhere. so, i throw back
some mineral-heavy water to
wade back out of the ocean:
a slow headache, a continual loss
i drown myself in. i could
get outta here and increasingly want to.
increasingly want (well, this part is easy).
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
The blade’s light
Lifting’s no feat
Fiery sword cutting
Carving through transparisteel
Steady hand needed
Never cutting fatally
For the Code.
The blade’s heavy
Hard to swing
Swearing while hefting
Till it falls
Filling the room red
Retching, staring, wondering
Warping the Code.
Nov 17, 2017
Nov 17, 2017 at 3:34 PM UTC
To the sea,
To the sky,
To the vast earth at our
Feet
I bid you a thanks, for gifting me your
Beauty
Shining bright, holy, lively
Full of aimless wonder, glowing with positives,
Amid the strangled uneasiness
You give new purpose, gaining strength in hordes.
Fly above head, filling my sight,
With clouds, specks, stars,
Emptiness
Yet beautiful in its own right
Bearing oceans of wealth,
Not money, but courage
Enough for everyone, amidst the array,
Breathing longing for your embrace.
Waves painted turquoise, hefting
Barrels of torrent, crest, chopping
Heavily away
Towards
Unheard words, whispering seashells
Into my ear, I hear your voice, calling
Beckoning for me, I walk, I run, tripping
Over myself
To get to you
I praise your beauty
For it lightens my heart
For it eases my mind
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
This maelstrom is ******* me in. No chance of rescue. No second life. I am torn between wanting to fight and needing to let go. I can feel your phantom fingers hefting me upward, toward the blinding light. Then, I am yanked down to the sweet abyss of unfeeling. Both promise of everlasting silence; one that can never be broken by humans. I am cleaved in two; these forces wage war over my limp body.
It's nice to know that something would fight for you even though humanity has given up hope. I should let go, be one with the supernatural. But which should I choose? I really need to let - NO! I don't want to be fought over by forces I can't even begin to imagine. I still want solid hands to touch me. I want the natural warmth that a body emits. I want to feel sturdy bones beneath my fingers and physical contact with the owners of these phantom fingers.
I won't let anyone decide for me. I won't die without a fight. I'll claw and scrape at everything for my survival. I'll even clip you in the head should you have ill intentions. No, I will fight till my end. And maybe, just maybe, I'll die with a smirk on my face and with fingertips hiding scraped flesh and blood beneath.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 10:00 AM UTC
Who are you this evening?
body first we took on the evening
like it were virgins on flay
we owe everything in praise
of moonlight
saying the gash of word
meaning it full in the sudden heat
of ephemeral light
once and always
at once your world became
a tiny cage for that little hummingbird heart
and you wafting
in the wind like a cloud
of farewell from the exhaust
of transitions
redefining you with intent stare
was searching for myself
from heavings of tired fusuma;
hefting out a mound of
equal parts divine and
sullied undisguised
yet only silence retained its poise
of mystery nothing
I could understand
a hand in
hand is nothing but the instant
merge and separation
and that the coming
out of words, a tabulation
of abject loves
simply you, a splitting image
of a thing refusing
to be held with one hand
on my face and the
other, fluttering away
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 12:50 AM UTC
Ever wished for a getaway?
Silent, solo, one-way vacay?
Happy, humanity holiday?
No-folk, lone-boat hideaway?
Do you drown in a roomful?
Or sag from a spoonful?
Is a mutter a mouthful?
Or a minute a moonful?
Or possibly next door
Is too near to hope for
Just presence impending
Is chthonic, light-ending
When speaking is deafening
Conversing, head-hefting
Add talkers together,
More sound than a blender
Shrill shouting and yelling
All brain and ear-bending
Wailing and waterworks
More blasting than fireworks
Even when voice-mute
Their feelings still noise-shoot
They sing and scream
Or **** and steam
Leave you battered
Dry-tattered
All flaking and scattered
Slight sheets float dust-shattered
Disintegrating on contact
Obliterating the contract
All social rules are in retract
Safety exits are abstract
Unbeatable, unkillable
Invincible, divisible
Not fast or irresistible,
I choose to be invisible
Oct 1, 2024
Oct 1, 2024 at 2:24 AM UTC