"pickaxe" poems
last night i almost
gave up thinking of bronzy brazilian girls
perspiring pure coconut oil, eau de margherita ;
supermodelas eating my dreams like concord grapes, lionesses
lounging on new york balconies, lithe, reading céline.
(esti ginzburg, on the phone, considers another pomeranian) .
almost stopped.
almost derailed strange vogue-like fantasme of irina shayk, standing legs planted
left knee out-thrust and foot
in ebony heel, cocked against the earth.
set being imitation of gloomy coal mine, east of prague. thin arms firmly controlling the
arc of her pickaxe, clothed in leather, high heels;
sheen of sweat holding her feline body in sweet embrace.
imagining that when shift's end buzzer echoes thru the tunnels she smokes a cigarette
on a bench in the women's locker, apple planted on old planking, elbows on her knees.
cover-alls peeled
down to her waist and her hair,
free at last.
(click)
on the tram back into the city all the smoked glass
cartier storefronts pass by like polaroids held in the hand. the same speed.
giggling, 'rina thinks of the six she could place
along her arm; gilt gold, brushed silver, diamant...
there are 11 smoked belmonts by the back steps; i did
little with the night. (tall shadow of a woman in a black dress and my mouth
a cotton ball)
that is to say:
i did almost give up thinking about bronzy braz ilia g rls ,
-
but i didn't/and so there's nothing else.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 7:14 PM UTC
He was a miner
Deep under the earth he sought
a gem he could not keep
worn and torn he went down
pickaxe in hand
little did he know
that it was his day
fate would greet him with a kiss
the last he heard was a hiss
His broken body was embedded in the earth
where tear drops fell
but tomorrow again
the earth will hear the miner's bell
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
There is an old story that my father
Told me and my brother when we were children.
It is of the windbag
Who now haunts the ancient diamond mines.
It goes like this:
"Boys, have I ever told you of the old windbag?
How about the diamond mines that poisoned it?
Well, this windbag was a miner
Who wore his diving suit and large pickaxe with pride.
Indeed his suit was pride,
But the golden diamond mines were lust
Lust that the old miner paid no mind.
For every strike with his large pickaxe
Was every moment his mind left sanity.
He wanted more wanted more wanted more
Always always always dreaming of glittering diamonds
That shrank his soul to stone.
He left this world no longer a miner
But a windbag lingering the mines possessed by diamonds
With its diving suit and large pickaxe.
One dark morning the windbag was mining,
It was mining mining mining,
Yet it could not hear the diamond mines shatter, crumble.
Its coworkers heard, but it only heard diamonds.
The windbag stayed in the old diamond mines,
Trapped in its diving suit
Trapped in its large pickaxe
Trapped in its diamond mines.
It continues to clink and clank
As it lurks amongst the silent diamonds,
Making only physical contact."
This story my father told me and my brother,
Haunts me more than the clink and clank
I hear while walking by
The ancient diamond mines
That swallowed the windbag.
Apr 25, 2012
Apr 25, 2012 at 3:35 PM UTC
The only job in sight
Is the mining task
It’s time to dive into the eternal night
Wearing an exotic mask
Surrounded by the earthy walls of uniformity
With a pickaxe in hand, I start the dig
The barren days have drowned me in pity
Hopefully I will find a gem worth BIG
I am not the only one in this mining tunnel
Thousands of other miners try to strike gold
I feel stuck in the bottom of a funnel
The only miners that can prosper are the lucky and the bold
In utter desperation
I grate the rough soil
Using new strategies to alleviate the frustration
I pray for a fortuitous end to this fruitless toil
With exclamation of sudden cheers!!
Some of the workers now start the upward climb
Many of the tarred workers break down in tears
Which day marks salvation this time?
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
The Lemur is enthroned on the heights of an island
In a luxurious villa, complete with a sauna and a pool
The Dormouse holds, modestly, a small pharmacy
Where people can buy necklaces, gemstones and pretty threads.
Every Monday morning the lemur fixes
His hair with a delicate ivory comb
Asks about the stock market in overflow
Swallowing a pure white powder in a row
His orange eyes threaten to explode
So he sits down, eats lobster and sated,
He doesn’t have a care in the world as descends the evening
His paw resting on a black jade cane stolen from the dormouse
Monday morning, the lemur, operational
Goes fast, pick and pickaxe at the mine
Extracting, sweaty, some beautiful spinel specimens
Hoping that one day at the Lemurian’s he would dine
For a trifle, the latter bought him
His most beautiful crystals and this without paying taxes
He became the leader of the island thanks to his kinsmen
The exotic animals knew something was wrong…
His only friends were the rich and the bohos
Under the yoke of this monkey, the island was a hellhole
Their chef was addicted to coconut powder
Whoever dared to say it was put in irons
When finally, an evening he overdosed
Nobody buried him among his friends
The Dormouse humbly undertook to do so
At the hole where he dug, he found a stone
The moral of the fable, listen to it then,
Who shows compassion exists with reason
Do not judge too fast, because we're leaving too early
Nature often rewards us in her own way.
September 11, 2019
Nancy, translated on November 17, 2019
Nov 17, 2019
Nov 17, 2019 at 9:40 AM UTC
keep the window open i cant stand to smell your skin, you are shivering. youre cold
(you tell me so (you want a response (i nod,)))
(but you are still cold)
*do you have any
fantasies?*
this halting voice heaves in my stomach pressing against the walls, making
me sick, the snap of your blinking lids a pickaxe to my temple. *i think about
fire
a lot. i think about forest fires.* filling the tank in a dead town, dark night quiet town,
the gas tank overflows (your nervous eyes in your sweating sticky face {your twitching gaze stroking the lighter in the glove compartment} dry dry lips {your wet tongue only makes them dryer})
breathing in her ear you say *tie me to the stake tight tight so rope burn sears my wrist,
burn me with the dry kindling,*
condensation drips down her neck, sliding down the arm. on the sidewalk in the pit of her shadow a puddle forms, wetting the wings of the unhappy wasps, joints twisted, the gaps in the exoskeleton show something bright, something bulbous, with forceps and needles it could be reached? its delicate skin pierced, oozing thick light (*do you have any
fantasies?*)
[*so there are two of me, right,
clones, equivalent beings but
individuals. some sort of sick
government secret. human ex
periments. its not important.
i grab my clone by the neck or
it grabs me, its not important,
the dust billows when my feet
skid, im choking, vision blurr
ing, i claw at my hands, we f
all, dust bursts into the air, m
y fist makes sick thudding sou
nds when it hits, bruising my
knuckles on the structural bon
es of my face, possibly breaki
ng the more delicate ones. im
straddling my chest and im s
pitting out the teeth that i di
dnt swallow. then the clones
**** im not really sure.*]
Oct 7, 2015
Oct 7, 2015 at 11:38 PM UTC
Pickaxe handles
jitters the species.
But cheek by jowl
there's an always ardour
in teak panelling
Can I follow her down
and love her for now ?
There's perfection
in preserved 1970's, Formica,
bubble wrap with squeak;
on a wholesome ligne roset tableaux
the height of sophistication
always the French language magazine
Paris Match,
as I plunge the Johnny Hallyday
fork deeper
hoping longer.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 4:13 PM UTC
Today, I must write a poem:
What this poem has to say
has yet to come to mind.
Has yet to ignite like a spark
on a cord
making its way
to an explosive source of ideas.
Such an amenity
so unlikely to be found
happening here.
I must again mine for thoughts.
So, along with my pickaxe,
I trek with good memories
to return me safely back
from the deepest recesses of my mind.
I hunt.
For idea. For inspiration,
For I cannot return
empty handed.
I dig. And I dig. And I dig.
It feels like forever,
as if there's nothing left,
as if the mountain of my mind
was tapped dry long ago.
I check every crevice,
every corner, and nook,
now ridden with old
and reused ideas.
And then I find it:
The first flower of spring;
the cloud in clear sky;
the single rock of inspiration;
possibly the last chunk of idea
for years to come
simply sitting there,
lighting up
the dark caverns of my mind,
waiting to take shape.
As I begin to mold
As I begin to sculpt
"It" is no longer an it.
Ideally, it's an idea
that has succumbed to the darkest,
most vile parts of my mind.
Yet, despite,
has been brought out the depths of
being just an idea, withering away;
it has been realized.
It has been successfully plucked
at its time of harvest.
It has become so much more;
this once coal of an idea
has been polished,
and glimmers just as bright
as its diamond-like companions.
So, I return
with yet another triumph,
from braving the dark and cold
labyrinth of my mind
yielding my trophy;
my idea.
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 6:33 PM UTC
I was brought here upon a cloud of unfairness
a cloud which I tried to undo
with hammer and pickaxe I toiled away,
but then I fell through
Into a sea of despair
which the cloud had brought down
in torrents and waves
it forced me to drown
I was still, and unbreathing
Like a dead person should be
emotionless and unfeeling
thats how they described me
Mar 16, 2010
Mar 16, 2010 at 11:26 PM UTC
Blubber
Sometimes I get tired
Of all the blubber
The grinding of systems
The metal to the rubber
The pushing of points
The singing to the choir
Pickaxe in place of featherc
Look there's a bird upon the wire
Maybe potions going dry
No thank you please
And fingers going all stiff
While here awaits the feast
And vases laying all smashed
Words sitting there all torn
Lets gather the broken scraps
Rearrange them and be reborn
Maybe it's me and only me
Closing an old and tattered page
Maybe I've overstayed my welcome
On an old and creaky stage
Ah the sticks an stones are smiling now
The crows I think they've left
But the cinders upon ash
Still burn bright upon this hearth
Out into the clearing
See it twinkling up ahead
An inkling of some something
Some of us have thought of and said
Merlin's done it agian
Con-Ed's shut down
Tesla's come into power
And White Bear gets his crown
Oh
And
George Carlin is pope
Shakespeare is president
They both know the ropes
And you what ya think?
Wink, wink
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 6:14 AM UTC
I scream out loud
No one hears
it leaves my mouth
light as a whisper
I’m angry
but mostly depressed
no longer able to breathe
Feeling used and abused
I open my mouth again
But nothing comes out
I try again
Coughing up words
As sharp as an arrow
blunt as a pickaxe handle
Blood red as a dying rose
escapes my mouth now
It runs down my throat
next to my beating heart
That no longer
can dance for you
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 12:16 AM UTC
Oh Jalaluddin!
You counseled me to "Tear down this house"
My House
Because I Love you
I'm taking your advice
Tearing it down
Brick
by
Brick
Plank
by
Plank
I'll start from the outside
And work my way in
People will stop and stare
"Another crazy person" they'll observe
"He's gone mad" they'll whisper as I break down the walls
"He's a fool" they'll note as I bring down the chimney
"He's lost" they'll gossip as I break the foundation
"Stay away from him" they'll warn as I sit in the rubble
"Were they right all along" I'll ask again and again
"Did I make a mistake"
"Did I burn my life on a whim"
"How do I know"
"Is it possible to know"
It's a lonely place this one
In the ruins
Tired and hungry
Gathering energy to dig
With the Pickaxe You gave me at birth
Alone
Homeless
Afraid
I Surrender...
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 3:03 PM UTC
It’s said
Glittering things just in the distance do not always mean that gold is just within reach
for fools gold is so much nearer to the truth
And in a similar vein
Smiles and laughter do not always denote happiness
because those in the most pain know well enough how to hide it
and that you would probably prefer it that way
And just like mining,
One has to dig past the surface
To see whats hidden within
So break out your pickaxe
and plop on your safety gear
and if you care as much as you like to say you do
Get ready to work
and dig
and get *****
Who knows what you’ll find
Diamonds or coal
Riches or nothing at all
Gold or pyrite
The truth or another lie
For even past surface level
Things can remain hidden in the dark
Just when you think you’ve reached the treasure
You’ve searched for so desperately
Your foot might fall upon something you didn’t even see
A pitfall perhaps
and down you go
Further from your goals than ever before
If there’s one thing i’ve learned in my life
It’s how to set traps and barricades
So unwary spelunkers never touch my heart
and only those who really care will get close
Close enough to free my heart from the barbed wire prison I created
My gold and treasure
My friendship
Is only for those who can earn my trust
Because while my body isn’t a temple
My soul is sacred land
Never to be desecrated by uncaring hands
And I will never let the hymns and lullabies I whisper myself to sleep with
To encourage myself
To let myself dream for a bright future
Be taken
I will never see them ruined or changed to fit the agenda of the uncaring deity you see yourself as
Instead I’ll bury them in the sacred land of my heart
Only to be found by those deserving
I will never allow myself to lose the love I have to give
For friends and family
For even after I dissipate into the end
Into the resounding, echoing, heartbreaking “Nevermore!”
My whispered lullabies will remain for those who earned the right to listen
And so for now I'll leave my treasure locked and buried
My love safe within my heart, my temple
Until you can prove to me you deserve it
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 3:44 PM UTC
I want to scream and shout 'til my insides come out,my wants and needs and desires feed the fires that are raging infernos,massive volcanoes erupt and they torture me.
Leave me alone or set me free.
I am sick of the pickaxe of bus fares and income tax and I'm thinking of quitting it all, to go and begs drinks at the temperance hall.
Sober,they say it is good,
not today it's not.
I've got a thirst and could drink down an ocean,
sell me a quick fix or fix me a potion or I'll have to scream,I'll make such a commotion.or
I might just curl up and die and leave you wondering why or maybe I won't,I don't really know,but I really know this,
bus fares and income tax really **** me off.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
The most precious and rare of jewels
Are found in the darkest of caves
Under the most intense pressure
Beneath the dirt and detritus
Only those equipped with a pickaxe forged of patience,
A gentle hand,
And a discerning eye
Will be lucky enough to find
These raw jewels in the rough
Whose beauty lies well beneath the surface
You may machine cut and polish
Synthetic stones all you like
However, there is no comparison of worth
To jagged jewels which have been ripped from the earth,
Washed, refined, and faceted with the care
Of a kind and gentle hand
Jan 15, 2017
Jan 15, 2017 at 9:30 PM UTC
Pickaxe swings,
shards fly.
Pieces move,
yet inners hide.
I've been swinging
both day and night.
Understanding you
is a futile fight.
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 10:27 AM UTC
Sestina From The Home Gardener
These dried-out paint brushes which fell from my lips have been removed
with your departure; they are such minute losses
compared with the light bulb gone from my brain, the sections
of chicken wire from my liver, the precise
silver hammers in my ankles, which delicately banged and pointed
magnetically to you. Love has become unfamiliar
and plenty of time to tend the paint brushes now. Once unfamiliar
with my processes. Once removed
from that sizzling sun, the ego, to burn my poet shadow to the wall, I pointed,
I suppose, only to your own losses,
which made you hate that 200 pound fish called marriage. Precise-
ly, I hate my life, hate its freedom, hate the sections
of fence stripped away, hate the time for endless painting, hate the sections
of my darkened brain that wait for children to snap on the light, the unfamiliar
corridors of my heart with strangers running in them, shouting. The precise
incisions in my hip to extract an image, a dripping pickaxe or palm tree removed,
and each day my paint brushes get softer and cleaner – better tools, and losses
cease to mean loss. Beauty, to each eye, differently pointed.
I admire sign painters and carpenters. I like that black hand pointed
up a drive-way whispering to me, “The Washingtons live in these sections,”
and I explain autobiographically that George Washington is sympathetic to my losses;
His face or name is everywhere. No one is unfamiliar
with the American dollar, and since you’ve been removed
from my life, I can think of nothing else. A precise
replacement for love can’t be found. But art and money are precise-
ly for distraction. The stars popping out of my blood are pointed
nowhere. I have removed
my ankles so that I cannot travel. There are sections
of my brain growing teeth and unfamiliar
hands tie strings through my eyes. But there are losses
of the spirit like vanished bicycle tires and losses
of the body, like the whole bike, every precise
bearing, spoke, gear, even the unfamiliar
handbrakes, vanished. I have pointed
myself in every direction, tried sections
of every map. It’s no use. The real body has been removed.
Removed by the ice tongs. If a puddle remains, what losses
can those sections of glacier be? Perhaps a precise
count of drops will substitute the pointed mountain, far away, unfamiliar?
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 5:47 PM UTC
I'll still be there in the morning,
Cold hard sweat clinging to my bones,
A smell I'll remember to my earthly grave,
That holds my skin like a dark cloak that you gave me,
When the moon was light that we read each other by.
I'll still be there, even when the bell tolls,
Rolling over in creased sheets that we ironed with our legs,
And the heart is still there, not sure where I expected it to go -
To be let in as the sun rises, I'll still be surprised to feel your heat.
Everything will be just fine
Mother said.
Mother said, "you're worth more than ironing sheets and giving freedom to caged birds"
How far would you go to wake up?
Do you still feel him on your skin,
Do your bones still ache slightly, for that touch.
Mother said "graves don't dig themselves, stop carrying that pickaxe"
Mother said.
But where else will you find diamonds except in the deepest mines?
And I'll always carry the cold sweat of coal in the morning,
My handprints will touch everywhere, and all you feel is silk,
All I will see is embers, from my burnt hands
And you'll let me touch the sun a thousand times before i get to touch you.
Mother said "stop thinking, stop crying, stop doing. Stop trying so hard"
Mother said "no-one will like you as you are, be better, be harder, be tougher, every single time"
Mother said.
So as you lay there in your sheets, wondering who I am, remember these things,
I am ash, I am bone, I am heat, and I am fear. I am a million things that have been extinguished before you met me,
And if you don't like charcoal,
I for sure can't forge you a diamond.
Sep 20, 2017
Sep 20, 2017 at 4:06 AM UTC
Everybody's lacking confidence
Everybody's just a slave to the banking's dominance
Everybody's backing arguments
Everybody's in a maze of ever-ranking documents
Everybody's wanting paradise
Everybody's facing hate and then responding scared of life
Everybody's falling, paralyzed
Everybody's hesitating when they see a haunting pair of eyes
They're always drinking on the victim's blood
Their rain's got me thinking that existence rusts
We should be shouting that "the system's ******
Now, stop the doubting, let resistance flood...
Everybody's seeming blinded
Everybody's blighted, everybody's teaching me a virus
Everybody's seeking eyelids
'cause when it comes to really being
They ain't seeing through their iris
Everybody's mind is stuck in the end
Everybody's lied, and then were judging a friend
Everybody's cried and then said **** it, I'm dead"
Everybody's died, I bet they're loving the dread
Everybody's heard the story
Everybody's missing when they're on the search of Dory
Everybody's sure they're sorry
Everybody's wishing they could find the worth of glory
Everybody's been through hardship
We peer through the glass of a see-through market
Lately I'm thinking that I've been too modest
'cause they want me in a cage, so I speak zoo knowledge
Ha - who's calling me? 2Pac and B.I.G, 'cause we're dying to live
Who's calling me? 2Pac and B.I.G., 'cause we're dying to live
I'm just trying to give back, that line is a zig zag
I want some food for thought but all I find is a big mac
Deep in your head's where they mine with a pickaxe
Claiming we have freedom but they silence the chit chat
I'm simply thinking we should bridge the cut
Instead of always sinkin 'cause the distance was
Shorter than we thought to keep persistence up
So join me when I say that the systems ******
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 4:53 PM UTC
I took a pickaxe to my heart
and chipped away the poison
clogging my arteries and
slowing my pulse to a whisper;
after years of build up
I finally curbed the beast within
but things were too good to be true.
Now my pulse beats a different tune
to what I've grown so used to
and I no longer crave the poison
that built walls around my heart
leaving me helplessly trying
to figure out what I want
and who I am
without the monster who controlled me
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 9:09 PM UTC
When it's time
and if it's time
it will be mine.
Time has a habit of creeping up on you and peeking into you
then staking a claim.
Fame you can keep it
I've seen it and spent it on even more time
that is the hourglass
a time that we save and time that we waste
all a matter of personal taste and of circumstances beyond our control
controlled by the clock I am constantly in shock
when I look at how time flies yet stands still.
I am reasonably sure that sometime in the future I will look back on these minutes with a grimace
and a smile
meanwhile time takes a break with some tea and a cake
and I sit by
watching the clock
still in shock and in awe
because it just passed three thirty and it's a quarter past four.
I can't even sleep got to keep my eyes on the tick
and the tock makes me sick.
Think I'll pick up a pickaxe
smash the clock and I'll relax
but in the twilights of midnights where the demons of mornings and in the yawnings of men it's already ten after ten
can't escape
I shall wait for the winding it's grinding me down
and I need a pick me up
a tonic to buck me up and I should just shut the
clock up.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 6:28 PM UTC
I’d been standing underneath the sun for hours in the heat,
When I came upon a largish piece of quartz between my feet,
I sunk my pickaxe deep inside the rock which shone with all,
The pretty colours trapped within a gorgeous crystal ball,
The axe swung down a hundred times, the rock stayed the same shape,
And in my own frustration all that I could do was gape,
The colours of the magic quartz were hypnotizing me,
I’d noticed others resting underneath the nearby tree,
But determined, covered in cold sweat I continued my work,
To try to find the treasures which inside the rock may lurk,
When twenty days had passed I realized I had not eaten,
But by a piece of stone I was so sure I’d not be beaten,
I’d had no sleep, was miserable and fearful of the creatures,
Alone and in the dark now I could recognize their features,
But instead of marching home I bent and carried on my chore,
Beating away forever like the sea upon the shore,
A year had passed, I knew deep down I’d made no actual progress,
But I told myself the rock was smaller so as to defeat stress,
I looked around and noticed I’d been on my own some time,
The hammering of the pickaxe like some old forgotten rhyme,
And as I slaved on foolishly with rusty worn out tool,
I wondered why on earth I had been doing this at all?
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 6:11 AM UTC
The tunnel winds its way up to the moon
and soon,
hopefully
because I'm on my last two spangles
and sherbet dabs are not the same
I will come out on the light side
the right side
beside a crater
where will be waiting
a signpost stating
'Paradise 3k away'
I will lay my pickaxe down and in lighter gravity being somewhat of unbound, I shall skip with glee
(and half a spangle left)
With an air, without air and with lots of nonchalance
I will prance my way to paradise bay
and play with beams made out of dust
(on the moon that
is so a must)
and when evening drops in for a tea and if I am able,still being full of glee,I shall eat pancakes and cherry tarts
and open up the 'love hearts' which I hid away for a rainy day but it never rains when it doesn't pour
and up here where I am with cherry jam and
within the core where there's more green cheese that you ever saw
there's a man.
The man in the moon and he soon joins in my jamboree
and then we're both filled up with glee
not really any need to eat my tea but I digress
as I usually do.
You can join me, get a ***** and dig away until the starlight starts to fade and close your eyes
in a moment or a moment more you'll be knocking at my door
(hope you brought some jelly tots)
and we can pour out spinning tops and spin ourself until all spinning stops and morning wakes
if not wakes, it breaks itself wide open on the bedroom floor
I'm not sure I like the morning anymore
what's it for but to disappoint the spaceman in my heart
tonight I'll start to dig again.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 2:10 AM UTC
The older you get
The faster you end up dying.
I'm alive,
Bury me with a pickaxe
An old hg wells book
A cup of Joe
And my old tophat
Bury me with a smile
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 11:48 AM UTC
The pickaxe was charming
And you once were whole
But the tanned laborer
Burnt brown by the sun
Made the pickaxe sing
Whistle in the wind
You felt the impact
The pickaxe once so charming
Broke you in two
These broken rocks
Fields strewn with your saddest story
About how time erodes
And the hand of man
Destroys
You were there in the beginning
The earth started spinning with you
Your witness to creation
Your abysmal ghost
You were there in the beginning
And all your broken pieces
Your bitter memory
Will be there in the end
With words unspoken
Shouting louder than the dying sun
All your broken pieces
Will be there in the end
To testify
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 6:21 PM UTC