"salting" poems
It's that Stubborn Fever which keeps the Mood
And forced your Jewels to croak a relapse
Since a Year's Half-Pie you hoarded the Good
And denied some Peers your Fortune, perhaps
Are these the Charges we must Debate
And defend the Truth of such Falsity
It is a Blessing. That the Watchman was late
To keep him from salting your Dignity
Never again. Will this Harper reject
And cut the Strings which Truth comes to rely
To re-wire each String and play Respect
Then tie on turtle-shells before it dies.
Long-Distance Friend. The Black-Knobbed Swan's voice mute
Flies away bleeding; And left out my Flute.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 2:30 AM UTC
Running amok black bellies of hail-clouds
divest their hard cargo
on near-ready harvest and thunder claps
in spiteful applause.
Scudding sails of racing white galleons
arrive to the rescue
and change weather's position as quiet
breaches gale's disorder.
Setting the sun throws magenta feathers
across dark horizon
and to settle the issue parades jade tints
as the landscape transforms.
Waiting small boats plod homewards in
fish-laden formation
while wives run to stoke hot-kettled fires
of ready bath water.
Lighting a pathway half-moon winks as
heavier catches in
hauled nets silver the harbour and men
start night's final performance.
Sating hunger with coming and going
sow-and-reap women know
the meaning of sharing male labour in
scaling and salting chores.
Fisher-folks' world begins and ends
with the vagaries and quirks of weather.
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 9:32 AM UTC
There's a little known sport
That is played in the South
If you ain't from round here
You may know nothing about
It is played by the old
Enjoyed by the young
Quite the crowd pleaser
This salting of slug
So grab the favorite of minerals
And your crystal shakers
Try not to view this
As demented behavior
You can taste the excitement
On this game de jour
Hold steady the Morton's
Get ready to pour
Scream like a banshee
Jump up and down
As we watch the slugs
Turn inside out
The best of Southern shakers
Come into play
With the salting of slugs
On slug salting day
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
The hollow truth carried on the wind
Budding asphodels wilted upon the pyre of paradise
Erst the rusted gates of Heaven
Deleing corrupt realm deliverance salting
The rivers of Eden,
Ananta, contemner of dawn
Stealing Levannah breaking Sol.
Without brethren kith, treading the tide
Of redemption thitherto
A tear in the fabric of the universe
Another drop in the ocean aflame
So that that fire humanity could be set
Broken vessels as like sunken ships
Eclipsing their own elan;
Fraying equilibrium averred officers of Hell
No more angels standing yet ranked still
In offices most high despairing
Purities ruination conjunctively
As with the same stride sought in
Pitched battle- touchable caste
Derelict of kin.
ELEETE J MUIR
Jan 16, 2012
Jan 16, 2012 at 5:59 AM UTC
I've stored myself away in a proverbial zip lock
Stained with nicotine, filtering what little sunlight may shine through
Sequestering any resonating laughter my soul may have once contained
In Tupperware from the late eighties
Filling the cracks in my belief system with nail polish
Trying to heat the icy corridors of my being with a cigarette lighter
And a curling iron
Any beauty I may have once possessed I gave to the gargoyles
Who flew it far out of my current zip locked reach
Holding vibrations of strings from a thousand miles away in holy regard
Salting my unadorned misery for better preservation
So that I may taste it once again
On the tip of my sailors tongue when the thought of a smile crosses me
My greatest current pleasure resides in tiny, fake, resin beings With wings
That will never flap
And I am obsessed with what may, Or may not happen in the tiny fake place
In which they dwell
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 8:24 AM UTC
You've heard of the children of the corn
This my friend is much scarier than that
Here to make sure you eat all your vegetables
Adults of the Asparagus
Set in a quaint New England town
Could be in any novel by Stephen King
Making sure both the young and the old
Eat their veggies raw, sauteed, or steamed
They'll make you sit by yourself at the table
With the dog behind the door when they lock it
Before you leave the table they'll frisk you
And have you empty out all of your pockets
You will shudder with butter on the side
Salting to taste if you must
Making sure you eat every last bite
Adults of the Asparagus
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 8:54 PM UTC
Stop salting your soil
Stop ripping your roots
Stop grating your grass
Start calling a truce
Start reeping what you sow
Start watering and it'll grow
Communicate
Appreciate
Never hesitate
Or the sun will
Not elevate
Jul 26, 2017
Jul 26, 2017 at 10:44 PM UTC
Longing again for the turn of spring,
to take me from this world of sin.
No longer will men speak my name,
for before me death will show my fame.
Now they cry for an innocent maiden,
who never returned from the first time she was taken.
The man who kills at touch,
keeps me tightley within his evil clutch.
Cry not for me people above,
just keep me alive with the pouring of blood.
For with his love he kills springs rebirth,
salting the now dead and barren earth.
imprisoned with his revolting seed,
i wish that in his presence my eyes could bleed.
for tears do not turn him from his desire,
to love me deeper in hells fire.
Jan 5, 2011
Jan 5, 2011 at 4:56 PM UTC
Invalid curtains
Broken down houses
Mold is growing
Everywhere
Not many live here anymore
Used to be a boom town
babies born
Everyone was employed
Took coupons at
the company store
Milled that wood
Ground that red ore
they don't build
washing machines
around here anymore
Invalid curtains
blowing in a toxic wind
nuclear plant failed
but that wasn't
the end.
The wind is still blowing
down main street
twitching the
"For Lease" signs
If the mud doesn't getcha
The *** holes will,
Schools?
Salting the roads?
There isn't any more revenue
At least Rays is open
the general store
Thomas's, the hardware store
next door
Tony's One Stop Coffee Shop
Barney's Pharmacy
Sellin' out those Oxys
The gas station pulled out their tanks
The doctor's gone
The dentist closed
Got to go forty miles to go to Costco
Still catching trout
at Jackson Meadow
down the highway
Pulled out an 8 pound bass
Never knew it was there
Put it back
Old guy one more life to live.
Staying here is all we know
No one knows we're here
Just like that 8 pound bass
One more life to go?
even though
We keep hearing singing
in the sundown snow,
the dying song
of a dying town.
May 24, 2018
May 24, 2018 at 9:12 PM UTC
Skeleton trees,
stripped down to the bone,
live naked within the walls of winter
Icicle boughs,
and branches buried deep in white
Conical conifers draped with ****** snow,
a blanket of diamond dust
They now enter my frozen world,
like life would now exist
inside of a snow globe
The drifting slopes
add white dimension
to this winter world
Frost upon the windows,
designed like crystal upon the glass,
sends shivers down my spine
The mass exodus of flocks of birds,
migrating south
for their seasonal vacation,
have gone away
These are the images embedded in the hynotic halls of my mind
The aging calender
upon the sunless wall
will soon give way to another year
The polar atmosphere
will have to surrender
its icy grip
but it is in no hurry
once January rolls around
In wintertime
we become like
weary, winter warriors
as we are manned with
shovels and plows,
battling the barrage of shellfire
of continuous cold, snow and ice
Shielded with scarves and heavy apparel,
shoveling and scraping,
salting and sweeping,
we are at war with
the fierce elements
that make us slip and slide
The salt trucks look like
army tanks on the move
Playful adventurers laugh at the scorn
The mammoth artic tundra
is their playground,
the ultimate winter utopia
They shall master
the slippery landscape
on skis, sleds and skates
in their pleasure
to conquer the frozen land
Winter is truly a wonder,
but soon my
Spring and Summer dreams
lie captive
I find myself
a foreigner of this wintry wilderness
My fair, flowery fields are gone
Barren are those beautiful images,
for Spring, Summer and Fall,
fables to my wintry world,
have slumbered all too long
Soon I am pondering.....
If only I can thaw
these stone solid feelings,
as the land soon melts
into Spring tears,
and can light a lamp within,
defrosting the sub-zero
feelings inside of me,
I will fully embrace the dreams
of warmer times,
and I shall find myself once more
A woman who knows why
she endures such a season,
shoveling my way through
the stormy periods of life
to thrive amid
the firsts of Spring
Sep 10, 2010
Sep 10, 2010 at 8:17 AM UTC
I'm still miserable.
don't get me wrong -
there are pauses, and there are breaks.
there are beams of light, there are glimmers of hope
and there are days where happiness is so golden,
I can practically feel it salting on my tounge,
dancing in my brain
and some small part of me almost begins to believe that
things have changed -
it's going to be better now.
but of course, night is still well and alive,
in it's deathly gloom.
and of course, the petals always plunge through
in a sickening cold snap
and I am brutally reminded that
spring
is just season, not a way of life.
and although the why is given a different name -
boys, alcohol, displacement, bad job -
i find myself surrending to the currents
that is winter days, where sunlight
burns to cold, midnight ash within a few hours.
every few weeks or so, the darkness returns
pinching out the flame that i had spent so much time trying to reignite and
oh, not again.
but again and again, the night falls,
the stars spiraling out of place until
the cold and the heaviness have anchored in my chest
like a yawning need for eternal day -
I'm suddenly left wondering if i should even fight it.
Oct 29, 2016
Oct 29, 2016 at 12:43 AM UTC
Kinda fainted Friday nite,
De doctor, he come, he say,
"Son you done
give us a genuine affright."
De doctor, he come, he say,
"Son, it's the end o' day,
Get your **** in bed straightaway"
"Here's what you be needing:
twelve tablets of hourly salting, no halting
eight hours bed rest, no dreaming,
four gallons o' tap water, drinking,
no stopping,
***"and for god's sakery,
cease and desist from
this writing,
poetry nonsense fakery."***
Weakly, I protested,
"My poems are the waste products,
the excretions of salt water tears,
a thousand years in the making,
dreams foretelling and retelling events disturbing.
If not removed, disinterred by their inscribing,
these poisonous emotions,
shall surely cause once more
my fainting and falling demotion."
He frowned, de doctor, he was perturbed,
his medical thinking cap was for sure disturbed!
With sighs that made my heart to be a stirring ,
De doctor, he come, he say,
held forth as following, quiet murmuring:
"Here is my prescription:
if you musting,
but with strict limitations it be enforcing:
*No more than four po-ems
De doctor permit to be writ*
per hour."
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC
Relentless
Beautiful
Glorious
Soundless
Falling
Snow
His painting
Exquisite
Tracing the
Silhouettes of trees
And salting the air
with crystalline snowflakes.
In all
ever so peaceful
passing
all understanding.
Cynthia Jean
Copyright
February, 2020
Feb 17, 2020
Feb 17, 2020 at 5:15 PM UTC
You've heard of the children of the corn
This my friend is much scarier than that
Here to make sure you eat all your vegetables
Adults of the Asparagus
Set in a quaint New England town
Could be in any novel by Stephen King
Making sure both the young and the old
Eat their veggies raw, sauteed, or steamed
They'll make you sit by yourself at the table
With the dog behind the door when they lock it
Before you leave the table they'll frisk you
And have you empty out all of your pockets
You will shudder with butter on the side
Salting to taste if you must
Making sure you eat every last bite
Adults of the Asparagus
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
I might be dead, horn-fed poultry.
Pluck me leave me cold and bumpy.
Eyes gone slimy,
Feet still trying
But I'm still your love.
Keep salting.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 5:31 PM UTC
He loved her for the girl that once she was,
When he himself was but a boy
Languid in his longing for the song in her eyes
And the sense of her touch in the dreamless dark
Through other brief loves the magic held
Though year, on gathering year, the memories declined
Until he held again a young girl’s weight
In his yet firm embrace
Through empty gaze and bitter words
She poured upon his unfamiliar brow
He loved her yet, for all that she had been
Cradling her shadow in his arms
Until, awakening to find her gone
He dressed her for the final time
Kissed her pale wide forehead,
And let the tears, undammed, fall now, salting their woven hands
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 11:46 AM UTC
I've always been a little selfish,
a little spineless,
a little reckless.
I'll use anything as an excuse.
An excuse for the lack of -
l o n g i n g.
God, I wish I could change things.
Ripping off- each bandaid,
salting every wound.
God, I wish there was another option.
I am closing all the doors.
I am pouring gasoline.
God, I am so sorry.
I've always been -
a little mindless.
Always shown -
a little too much kindness.
I've just never felt so flightless,
I don't really feel like -
I should fight this.
Oct 26, 2024
Oct 26, 2024 at 11:11 PM UTC
What was free now carries a cost
and I have no money to pay,
that account dried up a long time ago,
the last time I thought I was young
Now grandfather clocks know me by name,
chiming in their opinion,
pointing fingers in every direction,
signaling each passing hour like it is a celebration
Waking me from a peaceful moment
while an insulting dawn
hidden behind dark raspberry clouds
sings, “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone”
I see sunflowers staring through shutters
wondering why as
tear drops collect on their seeded faces,
salting their very existence
So I write out the reason
in the dust on this end table
Finger marks cutting through the dirt
that has gathered, forgotten and reminded
No poetry in those words, that has left me too,
my pen now passed on to someone “younger”
playing hopscotch and drinking cherry cola
stealing her heart as I
Fall into the unmade bed
where pillows are my only friends
Covering up...trying to hide from
the truth that scares me so..........who I am
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
Salting snails is torture
But once they’re cooked then salted
It’s fine
May 17, 2021
May 17, 2021 at 6:10 PM UTC
From Publius to Gaius
Gaius, how long have we toiled as one?
Three years, four, our sweat salting the soil?
Our blood yet stains each other’s altars,
Bound as brothers by the work’s sacred oath.
...
Have you forsaken that vow?
...
In shared turmoil, we wrestled petty thorns,
Crafting solutions from ceaseless strife.
Yet since Marcus came, you’ve turned away,
Leaving the labor to my weary hands.
...
Marcus, your jest of a comrade,
Fit for wine-soaked nights and fleeting charms,
Lacks the mettle to till or tend.
A leech, he clings, eyes wet with greed,
While I plow on, reaping what we sowed.
...
My sweat, my blood, still feed the earth,
While you share the harvest with his idle hands,
Tossing me scraps for fields I’ve raised.
...
He lounges in your atrium,
Savoring figs I’ve grown,
Lingering in leisure, not labor,
While the soil cries for care.
...
No more, Gaius. Keep your work,
And your Marcus, a shadow to your folly.
May your fields wither under his weight.
...
I offer myrrh and frankincense,
A final gift as I seek new lands.
My trade will thrive in greener fields,
Where seeds I sow will bloom unbound.
...
Under noonday sun, I’ll flourish,
While you and your work wilt without me.
Signed, PERTINAX
Jun 15, 2024
Jun 15, 2024 at 12:48 PM UTC
As the sky is removed from my feet
Be Good. And notice how the world remains unoccupied
however you manifest your Destiny... at best you get
Colonized by a Hoard of pure nonsense, with your own petard
hoisting the very Circus Tent of your Memoirs
and the footnotes we are actually
Plus the stars crossed and lost teeth...
a brute force merigold in a plucked grief
chiseled from the Bedrock of god's blunders
as we torment the perpetual Enigma
How we insist upon the faculty
without Divine consent ! we plunder the lumbering atoms
of our daily bread... salting the rim of sleep
couched in the misery of our very little Joys
while cursing Angels that fall on swordplay
and The Play is the very thing
your Father warned you
about
an uttering to con you from your bliss -
to best entangle the witchcraft of your sundered Love
and the shriveled thing your heart craved
when it was Good Night.
But nothing left
to **** a mocking
bird.
the martial art of winding up somewhere
you mastered long before you noticed
and you were
There
just before you arrived to get the shivers
thinking this had just ( recurred )
Just Now.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 12:25 PM UTC
The worst feeling is lying in bed, awake in the dark,
salting your wounds and remembering scars.
Because in lightness and in darkness you are the words running through my head,
with fragrance and clear nostalgia in the sheets tossed on my bed.
Awake I wish to touch you, the figure always in my dreams,
the darling who has caused my heart to burst at the seams.
The embers glow brightest at night when the moon is high,
and when gentle ocean waves sound, reminding me of your sigh.
First love’s terrible haunting will destroy my mind,
restrained by this most addictive and beautiful bind.
In whispers and in wanting you grabbed my heart to keep,
and now I can’t escape you, not even in my sleep.
I’m knee-deep in a puddle; I’m at the edge of the sky.
If I never get you again, baby, I think I’d like to die.
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 1:40 PM UTC
Where to begin?
From the top, I suppose
Of the proverbial mountain
Standing steadfast
Slowly penetrating
The indigo mist spiraling
The pinnacle
Peaking through the
The unified particles gathering
In bent-up lines
In pent-up times.
Electric
Against my own your skin is pressed
Entranced by optical pools
Enchanted by what lies
Beyond the colored flecks
of jade and chestnut we digress
Melting into a single texture.
Easy.
Steadfast and consistent despite
The prodding lecture
Of suspended disbelief
Unleashing ourselves
To the ambient
Four-dimensional
Placating the phenomenal
Perceived through the "right kind of eyes".
Gleaming yet gleaning but still
Guiding, this compass
That encompasses the raw
Torn-back flesh and ego
Scored and sacrificed by nameless
Aboriginal ancestors
Arching their bows with
Aim to eradicate
Foul ideas and fallacies
Judged beneath the squinted
Eye determining the deadly course
Of another forced
Self-consuming
Twisted moral paradigm.
They salute with self-satisfactory smiles
To relieve the conflict of conscience
Regarding blood-splattered soil
Salting the vague consolation: sputtering,
"This too shall pass, my brother".
Comforting one another
With the zip of
Vibrating strings
Pulsing against the
Weathered fingertips
In imperfect time.
Curving cedar lines
Poised with precision
Resemble and assemble in fragments
The urge to protect and preserve
The curve of a lover's spine
Bent-over and braiding
Long locks for war
Sitting cross-legged
On the dirt and hide floor.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 11:37 PM UTC
Just let him breathe
You always seethe
He coughs from the smoke
I know you gave that up
Years ago…
Ripping off his flesh
You‘ve made him unsure.
You know his disease.
You hide the cure.
You’re killing his mind
You always seethe.
You always blind.
Just let him breathe.
You dress him up
Locking him in his room
Pulling out his stitches
Salting his wounds
Just let him breathe.
He coughs from the smoke
I know you gave that up.
Years ago…
Jan 24, 2010
Jan 24, 2010 at 2:40 PM UTC