"sculpts" poems
son spreads knee blood into ******* &/or
sidewalk chalk.
mixes reds to pinks with head cracking asphalt.
of god & country.
of soggy bread in a lunch-bag; snackpack readied.
he skates.
the concussed ****** of booming youth.
omega he:
to the wolf pack outers.
breathing love of summer, he
is the son drunk on hi-c
& burping.
watching teenaged supersoakers yodel
on a bridge.
florida.
son sneaks out late to rationalize
the city’s features
under strange light & love of nightly people.
boy sculpts body out of beast,
turned dark corners.
arrives swollen.
his father erects a roofed flattop in the backyard slab
with flood light electronics taught to worship
the shred.
mother rattles the blender
on the kitchen outskirts, ***** breathed
& nearing with hugs.
blister-itched.
glossed folds of scar tissue.
those days on summer-beyond when the neighborhood pulsates.
with satellite dishes tuneforking high-frequency vibrations
from outerspace & pigeons explode.
son’s ears bleed, &
the television goes unwatched.
he snaps plank & ankle protein, refurbishing
his legs into iron-rods
or wands of summer anthem.
cold war.
he empties sugar-sweat & toxins
into the storm-drain.
essence of wet heat, skin pinched, & friend
of ghosts.
a three legged dog lay in the shade
leisurely watching the boy skate
on endless.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
*Let me be captured by the night.
Engrossed in the conversation
between the stars.
Syncopated twinkling like...
thousands of fireflies
trapped within sealed jars.
Let me be enslaved by the moon.
As I drink her glow in
greedy insatiable gulps.
Crestfallen...
Her beam with an agenda...
As the landscape she sculpts.
Let me be ensnared by my solitude.
But I hear crickets...
Chirping and chipping away at my
bastion of dreamstate.
Persistent calls
I try to shun
that never abates.
Let me be trapped in my thoughts.
So I could harness...
And immortalise them in
indelible careless scribbles.
Erecting and...
Rebuilding them from the
rubble of conflicting squabbles.
**Let me be overwhelmed
by the mess of my being...**
Let me wallow
Then emerge strong from this
decrepit state of mind.
Let me breathe heavy from my
punctured lungs.
So I could heal in time before
true solace
in this dark,
I would find.*
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 12:05 PM UTC
I. Neptune’s Theater
A rock spins through the universal tumbler
and its warm blue pools calcify
as turquoise Neptune in his cloudy blue bath bath
builds a lace castle with his fingertips
Sculpts a submerged eden of crimson and emerald
where painted parrots chat up cardinals
butterfly and angel fry sway with wave pulse
and foliated coral fingers beckon from arched windows.
Neptune’s children are flat and bright, spined and notched
free yet entangled in lace mesh ecosystem
beneath an array of bioluminescent stars
as a gangly pretender watches and blows bubbles.
II. Sapien Siege
The hot acidic hand of death grasps
the mesh rends and tangles
the ecosystem shattered
reef’s loosed children scream beneath planet’s stars.
Butterflies impaled
cyanide-swooning damsels
mesh-tangled angels hauled heavenward
coral to potash, corpses to coal.
The pretender to the throne blinks
rubs blurry lenses,
kicks plastic fins
and moves on to the next show
Unseeing and unaware
of the luminous filament in his wake.
Self-appointed divinity,
deus ex machina.
*******************************************************************************************
Ann says: All of the animal and human characters in this poem (except Neptune and The Pretender) are named after coral reef fish. Coral reefs, one of the most diverse ecosystems, are expected to be largely extinct within one human generation. Deus ex machina is Latin for “God from the machine.”
Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida.
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 3:43 PM UTC
Raven crosses the threshold
Hawk, a protector and a visionary . . . stands watch
Together: a great change is gonna come
Raven sculpts the formless into shape, awakening
Hawk to an inspirational message
Together: a pathway to higher consciousness
Raven mines the darkness
For facets of light, where our true self is found
Eyes wide shut, eventually leads to our souls purpose
Hawk surfs the primordial forces of life and
Can't see so catches an updraft for improved perspective
Eyes wide shut, eventually leads to our souls purpose
Raven brings the ghost
Hawk brings the quill
Together: Turtle Island medicine
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 8:17 PM UTC
She, my cutter,
my body, her cutting,
with tongue and finger nail,
any handy human implement,
she sculpts me to
her eye's configuring delight
she, grabs my wrist,
and my face
by her hands embraced,
unblemished once
now becomes scarred tissued,
no guise, no lies, no bearded mask,
no disguise -
all forsaken
hidden hardened skin,
speckled red/white translucent,
she kisses with adoration her
heart designed
objet d'art
*no better blade than she,
with every cut,
transformed, she becomes
my devotee,
I, her escapee,
I am her, she is me,
inseparable, my every command,
she obeys*
for our love cuts both ways
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 2:14 PM UTC
Descry the glittering sand,
Every coin is vestal, unused.
He cast unto the well,
Uttering a spell
That dwindled on his aching lips.
Amiss, his voice does not graze
Her conscious divination.
A thousand times again,
He strives-
Just for a spare thought.
But the fool, consumed, controlled
Wallows in the walls
She sculpts around him.
He begins to work away the vines
Of her honied tendrils.
Yet, each finger twined of gossamers,
Drenched in delirium.
Nay, she rejects his presence.
But grants her endless visitations
As a specter, with a Faustian kiss.
He drinks of her,
To parch his arid throat.
Remote, he holds the seed
Which festers within.
Forever.
Jan 30, 2021
Jan 30, 2021 at 9:00 PM UTC
Bernie frames the TV
between his feet--
left hand remote,
beer bottle balanced
by his right—
clicks through half-time shows,
clicks like shooting a gun, a Fazer,
a death-ray secret weapon,
clicks just to do it, an idiot’s
smile faint on his face.
he sees only noise
Emma tends her stamps,
perched on the plain board chair
she upholstered herself—
its arms worn, warm,
warmly welcoming—
her back to her husband,
her life as wife and mother
coming to a languid close.
she tastes some regret--
yet spicy with passion--
where life has had its way with her.
The rug’s bright stew of colors
can’t hide everything
children spilled
when they were young--
juices, milk, soup, sauce, tears;
little dreams,
tiny heartbreaks,
minor crises
ground into the weave;
all the gooey pastries, cookie crumbs,
blood and sweat and nightmares congealed
into solemn patina--
I see protects it from time.
These solid objects—
stout, no-nonsense chair
wearing gouges, marks,
discolorations of use
and years like badges;
fat, chunky, cigarette-burned
BarcaLounger, drunk
from drink spilled
on every surface,
handle supple
as a young girl’s wrist,
swirling a territorial aura
around its microscopic
sphere of the universe;
and the rug…
unassuming, proletarian,
handmade and honest,
each scrap of fabric
chosen by the weaver’s hand,
now useful again,
reveling in redemption—
these solid objects
invade,
infuse,
invigorate
otherwise empty space,
squeeze meaning from the world
around them,
same as the hand of the artist
sculpts love from her heart
to give them life.
The children have moved away
Old friends are dying every day
Stamps no longer can be licked
There is no way to interdict
The Jets are losing again
Feb 6, 2011
Feb 6, 2011 at 12:13 PM UTC
There’s nothing I remember, so I shall invent a life.
It all starts with a dichotomy. Speech, lack of speech.
Logos, preceded by the lack thereof.
A heartbeat, maybe, echoing to form a vowel.
And then a sigh, with inexplicably twisted tongue.
“I”…
I…
I’ll tell you. Raising a finger from my desk.
I’ll tell you how it began. I was in the dark, and decided I had had enough of it.
I flipped on a lamp at my side and began to write.
There weren’t any words yet, but there were symbols for sounds, and that was close enough for now.
I pressed enter, and the message flew to a compatriot.
Or an enemy. This flush dichotomy of forms abounds!
I hold my breath and wait.
Waiting, for a response.
Waiting, to imagine words I’ll never hear.
And the light hums.
I…
What is it, inside that filament
which speaks?
What is every minute morsel of matter telling me about my beginning?
I’m not sure I want to read it, when my phone shakes.
But that’s what that behavior dictates.
A laugh, a cold analysis, a response.
This could go on indefinitely.
I don’t even know where you are in the world.
I’ll never see you.
I think of a more advanced dichotomy, I read about.
It was attributed to Freud.
A baby masters the objective universe through two utterances
in a ball game.
Fort… gone.
Da… there.
For now, these words are silent, but if I were in a crib
You would be the breast I long to devour,
The meaning I would choose to fill my mouth with
Muffled exclamations:
DADADADADADADA!
And I cry. But I don’t know what this all means to you.
Because I haven’t told you with electronic signs.
I’m not sure the word “to cry” carries any meaning.
It just stands in for fear.
Fear of being alone in the world, with the dark,
And no logos.
But I could go on for days reading walls of text on webpages developed by people
who have long since died.
I can summon the likeness of every celebrity onto a screen
rubbing my ***** while I look at them.
I can hear the music—
I CAN HEAR THE MUSIC—
Of all the world, vibrating. Rhythms contracting, like vulvas after birth.
And the silky, black discharge is this emotion in my brain after I think of you.
I created you with my words.
I illuminated my world with the thought of you.
And now I have nothing to say to the creature I created.
I am in horror before you.
Fort, fort, fort, away!
You have left me, without ever being present.
You were here, you were gone, I had no control.
And when I weep, the fear drowns the sun’s luminescence
The clouds hide the sky
The air sculpts my lungs
With emptiness
after words have come out.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 3:42 AM UTC
He's my favorite poet
but he doesn't write his words
with pen or paper
instead he breathes them into my neck
while painting me
with the smooth touch of his lips
His hands glide over my body
effortlessly and smooth
while he sculpts out my figure
better than Michelangelo
ever could
He is my favorite artist
and I am his favorite piece
but I am afraid
that all art must be finished
one day
B.S.
Jan 26, 2019
Jan 26, 2019 at 10:41 PM UTC
Through this corroding forest,
a thin snake winds soundlessly
between stiff marram grass.
Over time, the constant brackish wind sculpts,
drifts / scaling the metal shanks
shackled to their own shape-shifting shadow.
Steadfast in scorched sand, forty or more as one,
tilt towards the ocean,
reflecting conflict between water and earth.
We are not in tune with their deep veined histories
nor elemental transformation.
We do not propound to understand their language.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2012
Feb 10, 2012
Feb 10, 2012 at 4:12 AM UTC
Happiness is finding someone to share your life with,
Sadness is realizing it's the wrong someone.
Happiness is having a partner,
Sadness is realizing you still have to do it all yourself.
Happiness is having passion in your heart,
Sadness is having no one who wants to share it with you.
Happiness is finding writing again,
Sadness is having no one in your life you love that truly reads it.
Happiness is having manners,
Sadness is worrying every minute of your life that you might offend someone,
until it sculpts your every waking action.
Happiness is having an epiphany,
Sadness is not knowing what to do about it.
Sadness is recognizing a problem in your life,
Happiness is having a plan to deal with it,
Sadness is knowing your probably cave in the end, like to always do.
© Misty Bishop-Martiss
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 10:29 AM UTC
***The moonlight drapes the night
With the shimmering veil
Night’s silhouette looks gorgeous
As it sculpts beauty every where
A dream within, echoes
Across the valley
Loved by the moon
The night bathes in eternal beauty
Silver rays kiss the soul***
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 11:22 PM UTC
I. Erosion
I could ***** a monument to death
And carve my name and epitaph in stone
But words are just as fleeting as my breath—
My monument is made of flesh and bone.
Indeed, like granite, filed by the rain,
Whose names and dates will ever be unfound,
We leave them lying here who we have lain
As headstones toppled wanton to the ground.
But while their names will wash away in years
And melt into the soil with their flesh,
We, left living, welcome weather's tears
And let the showers wash our bodies fresh.
II. Plots
What rope is this, tied round a plot of land
To separate the sacred from the plain
And make uncomfortable on which to stand
These grounds that, like all others, suffer rain?
The plots on which I make my daily rounds
Are no less sacred than the breathless fields;
The same grass grows in fair and fertile towns
As in the lands from which we draw no yields.
III. Ideals
What ideal immortalizes dying
With figurines that celebrate decay,
Which stand ironic of their subjects lying—
Staying while their subjects waste away?
What ideal shapes stone to mask the slough
And sculpts a youthful bust out of the sickly?
One human form is monument enough.
I hope it crumbles quickly.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 9:09 PM UTC
Elevation decorated with hues of green, shades of blue
Shapes and sounds that ground the climbers on the mountain
Inside the hardened lungs of the hikers among
is the newest, freshest air
The river that courses through each dip in the Earth
carries sediment as it sculpts
It bends and it breaks the ground that held it in place
it creates a new path to call it's own
It made a new place to call home
Elevation decorated with crinkled water bottles,
elevation drowning in bug spray
elevation soaked from the sweat that rolls off
the bodies of those who finally reach the top
There at the top, elevation and she coexist
Together, they are in rhythm
They breathe in for four, they take in some more,
they exhale the world left below them
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 3:53 PM UTC
it rains
where scattered white mists
applaud the silhouette
of a sharp and pointed moon
whose coagulant light
dispatches an infinite
population of ghosts
to haunt upon the mind
with tangential interests
are reluctant incarnations
of an intolerable vocabulary
with incoherent signs
these ragged images
free float before the eyes
create a straight line
upon a lime green colored wall
whose ghostly contour of shape
has no reason to be there
then it rains in horizontal free fall
from the ceiling to the floor
where these apparitions collide
in an empty sky of stars
creates a mysterious circumstance
that dictates mischievous epigraphs
where the leaves are black
it is whispered to young men
who reluctantly plant trees
whose shade they know
they will never sit in
it rains in this place
an angry and heavy rain
that sculpts the bones
and blinds the eyes
and the young men lie down
like rusted knives
in an antique drawer
without recognizing
this dredful portent of war
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 10:15 AM UTC
{1}
Walking slowly into
LOVE
is better than
running into
HEARTBREAK
{2}
poetry
not only
moulds the mind
it sculpts the
SOUL
{3}
The
universal
icebreaker
for any
conversation
is always
the
WEATHER
10W
SoulSurvivor
(C) Catherine Jarvis
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 1:23 AM UTC
she takes ashes and sculpts them
into new perspectives. new lives.
beginnings are like sweets at her fingers
colourful, varied on the tongue.
she can taste different directions before she commits
that’s just who she is
she is beautiful
waves of hair and a pierced nose
a ***** neo michaelangelo
sitting there in youth
patience in her tiring muscles
until she freezes into womanhood
on planes of smoothed stone.
she has grown beyond my stature;
an adult born in a huff of breath
that pours over our lives
her new status matches the pull of her eyes-
wells of blue insistence, i’m here, i’m here
I’ve grazed myself on eighteen,
I wear my newness well.
when she covers her arms in bracelets
hard little planets
that orbit her statement-
i’m me hello world i’m just me
when she paints her eyelids
lips
lashes
dying herself new
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
When the lone gull fiddles in the dune grass
to the chatter of light on the tide
come whittle the hours by the water's edge
where a palette of wonder hides.
Watch as a watercolor sharpens the sky
on the crest of the ripening day
a snippet of eternity
that filters through the haze.
As hands of age betray their touch
where the shoreline chips and bends
so grain by grain the Savior sculpts
the lives He spurs and mends.
Our footprints melt beneath the spray
in concert with the Lord...
old marks forgotten, chiseled clean
simplicity restored.
Pocket the morning's steady drum
and frame it in your soul.
Run breathless down the dwindling coast
'til the dizzy world winds to a stroll.
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 7:56 PM UTC
My father is the music.
My hearts rhythm a show of puppetry.
A creation of passion, constructed solitude,
Packing my world with repeated withering words
In which meaningless love wanders, until it is
Personal.
Too high, too drunk, too moved by music,
That ****** harmonica, guitar, microphone, even spoons
These utensils too forgetful to notice,
Other senses,
What past notes have created.
You are a monster music, that calms
And rages, carves out playgrounds of feeling.
Music sculpts everything, it defines me.
Yet, if it is truly bad, off key, or sharp,
Nothing sung, written, or played
Can bring the sound of stories solace.
Feb 17, 2012
Feb 17, 2012 at 3:48 AM UTC
It's not the fear that brings
about the images the painter
paints.
The words the writer writes.
The shapes the sculptor
sculpts.
Or the sounds the
musician brings.
It's the knowledge that there is more
than the trash filled gutters.
The windowless bars and
loveless street girls.
The foreign commerce you are
expected to buy and the life
you've been trained to sink
yourself into while still dreaming
of oh so much more.
Some gifts shine and cast rainbows
in the light and some gifts expose the
darkness we all know is there but still
refuse to see.
The masses look to make a Hero
out of the artist.
They set prices on the works
and attempt to understand the
view.
This craft here comes in waves.
All there is to do is
try to keep up with the demands
of this ongoing battle
for time.
Time to sacrifice more
to the machine.
Less time for all the bad things.
More time for the gift.
My need to shy away from
the crowds in order to
create hand woven magic in the
dark.
The need to challenge Platos
view.
The need to feel the numbing
cold of Dantes Hell.
The need to live out my days
in Bukowskis harsh vision
of the world.
The gears of their clocks
keep grinding.
Grinding like a junk yard tweekers
teeth.
My remaining pages remain
unfilled and the sun has already
set on my tomorrow.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 11:15 AM UTC
Blue eyes
Glancing over at him,
Admiring his beauty.
So deeply in love with him
But, a word hasn't yet been shared.
He longs for another.
Breaking, shattered.
Such a strong grasp,
around my heart.
Just to love him
To cherish,
every atom that sculpts him.
Gives me a reason
to keep my broken heart,
Beating.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 3:11 AM UTC