"sheared" poems
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was ****
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten ****** for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn’t true.
Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many “righteous ones,”
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
~ Eugene Peterson
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 12:31 PM UTC
as soon as these blue speckled
socks go, that's it. A new bright black death.A solemn weir on a stark horizon.Give me a reason to wear color. My hueless affidavit
runs me into the Earth, where I sprout up
a pallid keb- brain orf'd, you could drag my etiolated ebon
body through the ovine fold or take me to the theater. When I was just a minor teg, I sheared my mim kip, I fuckinggave it to you outright. In this little
cote my wan mien nigrifying; my calamitous black, quaffed full of congou in demitasse, of souchong & saucers. My atrous wethered body albicantly degenerating in the atrous sun. I'm crusting over with wanness and you, you're fortifying in the cwm where I used to yaff and stray. Your ovivorous hunger,something I never knew, when first you came for my jecoral flesh, just another bot digging through my soft toison. Like Dall's Prometheus being sheared from the flock-you cut me away. In this drab and achromic world, you put the wanness in my flesh, the gid in my heart. Still.
Just these blue socks are left.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:20 AM UTC
I was once a shape...
Equally jointed,
at four opposite points.
I was a square...
I never knew the way of the world.
Never open to new experiences,
even when they presented themselves bare...
Even when the shrouds of uncertainty
were wiped away leaving the future unfurled.
I grew up...
Huddled under the roof set above me,
with four walls that kept me safe and sheltered.
That was the entire universe.
That was all I saw...
Views so narrow and uneventful...
A life so bland with the fun bits all sheared.
Never brought up to question...
Never given the time and space to think.
There was always a yardstick upon which I was measured.
The sea of expectations was vast but shallow...
So I could wade forever,
but never sink.
I was once a shape...
No one then expected me to be other than a square.
I had everything I needed,
all within the confines of imposing cordons and tapes.
But the world would constantly rap on the windows.
Peddling its fantastical ware.
It would entice with its secrets and mysteries.
Boasting the wonderful stories it'd like to share.
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 4:49 AM UTC
Ideas Rampant; Lies Abound
I am Satan's Favorite Hound
Kicked and Beaten; Shaved and Sheared
Nothing knowing but what is feared
Born with blood instead of Soul
I was first to dig the hole
Churning lies to spread on bread
My small voice makes smiles dead
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
Across the span of fissures,
Marring a weather worn land,
Two, of The Elements toiled,
Splinters biting into their hands.
Air and Fire,
Barefoot and tired,
From opposite ends of the world,
Planks in hand, their journey transpired.
Towards the centre that was chaos,
That was disorder and fear,
Of what happened when the Elements met,
When they had come near.
Colossal the effect, Air fuelling Fire,
Fire enveloping Air,
The energy too intense,
Their bodies it sheared.
Thus, eternally wary, since
That time of Destruction,
They sought to overcome,
A life growing into dysfunction.
For a land remains empty,
Without fire to be the Dark's fall,
For Air in an empty land,
Gives life to none at all.
Thus they build,
each passing step,
A fence with sins inscribed,
To remember the sacrifice.
To understand what they were,
When coming close would not hurt,
When they could let live in peace,
Instead of driving the world into the dirt.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 9:03 AM UTC
All night the army came up from Gilgal
To get to the killing field, and that's all.
In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead.
I want to die in My own bed.
Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny,
I'm always the few and they are the many.
I must answer. They can interrogate My head.
But I want to die in My own bed.
The sun stood still in Gibeon. Forever so, it's willing
to illuminate those waging battle and killing.
I may not see My wife when her blood is shed,
But I want to die in My own bed.
Samson, his strength in his long black hair,
My hair they sheared when they made me a hero
Perforce, and taught me to charge ahead.
I want to die in My own bed.
I saw you could live and furnish with grace
Even a lion's den, if you've no other place.
I don't even mind to die alone, to be dead,
But I want to die in My own bed.
2.6k
you are
the heckler in the crowd
trying to rip out
the rug from
beneath my toes
silent was the treatment
firm was my resolve
indifference
between books,
tables, & legs.
it lasted until
the viewing party
preening, fresh
dye, a new luster to
your slick, sheared visage
you smile & draw
a little bit of blood
it comingles with your own
hot & thick,
(they await
with baited breath
the proper demise
of union that never was)
& slackjawed, wide
eyed, resolve dis-
solved
I set you
on a pedestal again
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC
Children of Louisiana,
Swept away and drowned,
In the river’s flood
And the ocean surge.
Never have recovered
Fully from the rain falling down,
And of a city that was purged.
Ignored by the government
And its fellow man,
Follow in a long line of sufferers
Since the melting, ice age glaciers
And even a tsunami in the North Sea
That wiped out Doggerland.
Dark Ages got darker as people ran
And Britain’s white cliffs were sheared.
Times got better and then got worse,
But the people carried on.
Now, the floods are a weekly thing,
A blip on a newscast,
As lost as the victims in a mess
Of other disasters,
Of wildfires, droughts and don’t
Even mention the quaking earth
Or volcanoes! We can’t take credit
For causing those!
Rich men in their castles,
Feasting and clapping each other
On their fatty backs,
Rolling in the spoils and spills
Of oil, on the flaming water of
The American plains.
Sheikhs in old Mesopotamia
Whine about oil pipelines,
Promised to them by President Cheney,
While the people starve.
Bloated oligarchs spread destruction
All over the world, from
The Congo to Chernobyl,
Melting icecaps and raising the sea,
Sinking islands where they don’t live,
Vacationing in the Maldives,
On special rates before those go under.
They won’t fix Miami, but let it sink,
But not before they plunder
The empty towers built on foolish dreams.
Of course, they’ll be the last to go,
Crammed into mansions up in the Alps,
Fighting with the European nobles
Over who gets a crumbling palace
Now sitting on the last ice floe.
A few American cousins round each other up
To catch the Dixie Flyer down to New Orleans,
Trying to hide from the polar vortex,
A dazzling case of ignorance and greed,
Only to find the tracks buried in the sea…
Down in the mud of the deep, brown sea.
Mar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 at 4:26 PM UTC
The ******** in making,
Enjoy the pleasures of faking.
My thoughts still fleeting,
Sheared off yet bleating.
The rake inside me awakened,
Morals yet again threatened.
The devil's awake agile and ready,
Conscience breached and unsteady.
My head remains heavy and pensive,
A ******* yet again shall live.
Ransacked of all what I had,
Forlorn with thoughts, sad.
Leaves me hollow inside and out,
Void inside wishes to scream and shout.
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 12:25 PM UTC
...
Dear Mr. P - [stop] -
...
I was your knife in the water, a credit card kept exclusively for killing - [stop] -
I was a gingersnap on your sugar train, a flower-filled glory box to swallow your whole wide world - [stop] -
I was night, night of the electric insects, praying mantis and ladybug — nervous animals, lotus eaters, enjoying a ceremonial after meal
- [stop] -
I was slivers of pseudoscience poisoned by man-made seasons — a new and beautiful and interesting disease - [stop] -
You and me, we are now the same — snapshots in sheared time, before the closedown of our impossibly ****** impulses - [stop] -
...
Best wishes, V
···
Feb 16, 2022
Feb 16, 2022 at 12:20 PM UTC
You are
You are
a chiseled statue
a myth, animated under my gaze
tangible flesh under my hands
out of my closeted mind
you are
you are
in essence, a beautiful mirror
of a beautiful essence
For Adonis, I come to understand
my feelings are lulled under your tongue
patience
as my blind senses seek them out
you are
you are
a silent strength
owning to yourself
must I thank
you
this dance
of serpents of ether
smoothing feathery scales over the riddling bones of Lilith
I owe this response to you
For the things you stand for, the truth under which a fined tooth comb scrutinizes
grasps of tickling warm fire conjure my intentions
I am a smooth stone, burning by the illicit form and desire of this worldly hearth
under my arms you reach and you soothe
this idea from the small of my back, out of reach
I walk my thoughts further away from you
to objectify the sensations that pursue
Eros draws
his serrated arrow tip alongside my cool unassaulted skin
should I linger here, I'll find it sheared
and my sanctity tampered
use this silence to displace this feeling from outside of me
so I can take my leave
lay frozen still as I divulge and lavish upon you my disgusting intentions
to my absence
so I can leave
and rid myself of uncharacteristic traits
tempting
butterfly wings fluttering against the underside of my skull
I am not tempted
I do not regress
Eros is unwelcome here
when he speaks of this particular entity
under his outstretched upper lip
I am enraged
what can a boy-youth know of the complexities of the feminine spirit
to which the heart works in unison
my feelings are my own, in a shallow drawer where they aren’t tosseled
arent felt
I may feel the warmth of them under my desk
but I refuse to eye the key
where do you get the audacity
to touch and give advice to one as old as me
my feelings belong to me
not the wild underside of a rooting pig
hunt them mercilessly with your arsenal instead
as your mother-Aphrodite
inspires their sloshed pursuit of an obscured truth
put your maquillage on them
and clear your mind of mischievous foolishness
or vain undersanding
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
The poet looks
and delves.
She wonders if he ever stops,
him, this rushing-forward-breathlessly train,
if he did park himself in fantastical paragraphs;
the poet is dumbfounded at him
ceasing.
In construction sites of grammar,
where free ideas float in ruins,
poet wonders how,
how, how
he came to plan to live
up
to an exclamation mark.
And condensed so many dribbles and strikes
of strange and fruitful, even withered
paragraphs into one line and pointer -
a smile and a lope-stagger dance of a walk -
an exclamation mark.
The poet stares, once again
astounded by the little streaks of the universe
and longs to hold on to something.
Disarmed,
she can't quite put a finger on it,
his gaping honesty and his quiet one,
that contradiction
shouting in her face
while whispering in her eyes.
The poet laughs -
laughs of, in, out
of sleep.
Summer is here.
And she chooses to notice.
He laughs too,
but he's always been noticing
and the poet writes down how
she learnt to bite and chew into the fruit of the world
and taste
it sour runny sweet cold explosive lingering
just as him.
The poet saw all
colours rolling in one
strange song of limbs.
She did not like the music
but she made herself a blank white canvas
and listened
and laughed
clean, silly laughs
fluting out of the incongruity
of simple,
simple
moments.
Fun life, easy stretch of the mouth -
it is possible to smile down at
what a clown pain is.
He declares this boldly
without saying a word
or two.
The poet is dumbfounded at him
being.
She did not see and had not seen and now only began to picture
but she was blind.
He said he was blinder and that
was true. The poet
did not smirk but giggle at the irony -
he lived in pop-bold spectacles,
she slept in black and white films.
But both were blind.
We cannot see and
we
are blurs.
The poet likes that life scrapes away at her
because she can see chinks of white sunshine
through all the sheared-off layers.
Clean, clean,
bright, bright -
he teaches her in a beam
without a hello.
The poet writes poetry
on breathing action prose.
And she laughs -
You are everything I don't want
but I'm curious.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
A tiny devil lands
on my shoulder;
having no counter-
part, she stands
and, as I walk
at rabbit's pace
to the old place
where we used to talk,
she drags from
her cigarette,
flicking it,
hum-drum.
"He ain't comin',"
she says,
and ashes
on my neck.
"Don't need him,"
I lie--should lie
down to die,
but light up instead.
Unconvinced,
she scoffs at me.
"Then what do you need?"
And a dreadful wind
slithers through
the fissure,
icy, bitter.
"I don't need you."
The woods, too
are dead, like us--
a Winter-sheared husk
through and through.
You'll come, I hope,
leaning over
the grove, or
maybe I don't.
You'll come, I hope,
leaning over
the grove, or
maybe you won't.
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 12:22 AM UTC
***an empty white page
begins this recording
a writing exercise..
cold winter morning
9:47 AM overcast
snow to come..
standing eyes closed in
a dampened grass field..
lost eyesight gave way
to memory and
to senses remaining..
this spring migration
filled imaginations..
long beaks search
hidden insects within
a spongy earth..
cottonwoods wind-sheared
their vertical height
constricted and flattened
earth's jealous limits..
then we heard
a distinct high voice
the krrrh ascending
our perspectives reversed..
a singular high place
a timeless hovering
distant fields imagined
those earthen limits..
wings now extending
with expansive strength..
then remembering our
Shivering Discomfort..!
Enough..!
to sheltered warmth
we now fled...***
*Appreciation for writer
Susan J. Tweit
and her lesson at
the Crane Festival,
San Luis Valley,
Colorado*
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 10:56 PM UTC
Wriggled and wrapped in our safety suits
The Man tells us the sea is ten degrees
The Man wants his cargo to be safe
The Man wants us to come back
Single file managed carefully
A Man directs us to the tarmac
The big, birds, blades, beat
Secured, we hover lightly
Quick check, Straight up
Tiny farms with tiny fields
Checker an industrious quilt
Stone is torn from a quarry
For homes of busy people
A road rests on the countryside
A ribbon on a patchwork blanket
Houses embroider the hills
Where families pay their bills
Crawling along paved threads
Creatures scurry passed a hospital
With more important things ahead
First day back to school
Rush hour, late for work
We soar above the little land
And hold the blanket in our hand
The mansions acres sheared and preened
Sit pretty next to factory steam
From here the mansions just as small
From here the graveyard’s twice as tall
Hugging coast we close our eyes
The stuffing from the covered skies
Descends around our whirly bird
And only flutter can be heard
And from the window only sea
Until we reach our island, sleep.
Jun 22, 2010
Jun 22, 2010 at 1:11 AM UTC
I did not really think it through
When the first few strands of my hair came falling to the floor.
But then again I don't really want to think.
That was the point.
As the blunt kitchen scissors sheared what was left of the choppy mess on my head
I am worthless.
That's what you always tell me.
I don't want to think.
You never really did love me.
You always left cuts and bruises on me
Never letting me heal for your own selfish reasons.
You are never at fault.
But you've certainly made your mark.
Now I can only attempt to cut what damage you've done to me out of my life.
My fragile locks scattered around on the cold tile floor.
I can't bear to look.
You don't know what you've done.
You never will as much as I wish you would.
More strands fall from my shaking hands.
I wish I could cut you out.
-Kore
Mar 15, 2021
Mar 15, 2021 at 8:02 AM UTC
all thousand sheep are sheared
bleating to find friends
They have a good shepherd
who knows his flock
Brendan up with the ****
crow and home with the stars
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 1:13 PM UTC
the stories of women you write sonnets upon , or the ones on caricatures
i consume.
they're all fiction to me.
for the women i know are all looking out the window, wandering into endless abyss.
or waiting on tiptoes - to be tied down
in the bonds of 'holy' matrimony.
when they were young,
living on dictums of
father and brothers was an
unspoken, but frequently
enforced trend.
now no longer lean saplings, (who could be stomped upon with ease)
but sprawling, majestic trees
with branches chartering territories
that remain forbidden for the tree.
their offshoots
are sheared (for they can't be crushed with ease)
in the name of honour.
to ebb out all the figments of
rebellion, the tree
might hold in it's gamut.
still tamed in the garden,
a new gardener comes in place.
a slightly younger one, who
comes with his own tenets.
restraining her with a
strap, in the name of modesty.
he satiates himself by strangling
last shreds of revolt
her father couldn't slay.
the woman is caged in bars of shame,
all in the name of honour.
yet again.
why is it that the women i know only lessen with age?
but the men smirk upon,only inflating their slyness. as the years grow on them.
Oct 27, 2016
Oct 27, 2016 at 6:12 AM UTC
we will know them by their fruit
when it comes
we will know our places
we will hear the bells ringing
we will adore those who waited
we will praise those who carved the path
those who cut the rocks and sheared the lines
those who walked the path and stirred from beyond
we will ignite the lantern
the path will be lit
we will
we will
we will
from our loudest cloud cloaked hilltops
the mountains will sweat
the elders will growl
the lights will be bright
we will
we will
we will
poetic justice prevails
the thunder will reign
the elements will represent
the justices will hammer
the voices will be claimed
the fabric of a trillion stars echoing their light from beyond
we wish and we will
sing the song of mercy
the great spirit abides
thy will be done
on earth as it is within
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
a Saturday afternoon love song
<>
finally the breezes have sheared the humidity,
away, away, out, out sluggish, do nothing thoughted spots,
so peculiar to a Saturday August afternoon,
passing like a last exhaling breath,
quiet like, no receipt, no return, no raising of the turgid, languid lungs
one more time
alone with quiet contemplation for sole companionship,
observe a regatta of sailing board boats, silenced passerby's,
orderly and regal, the wind keeping them tidily single filed
their empowering wind makes me prone to
thoughts of singing,
Leon Russell's A Song For You,
up next on the playlist,
but the squirrels beg off,
the rabbits hide away 'neath the deck,
the craven ravens retreat to the highest branches,
alone, laughing at their impolite, unsubtle slipping away of the
dearly departed
earbud a semi-solo performance, a duet,
me backed up by
Leon and the river-baying waves,
a city boy singin$ rockily,
in a place where a city boy has no earthly business to be, ^
especially singing,
chanting to everyone, no one in particular,
listening real careful like to the words of two oaky, growly voices,
leftovers from the Sixties, sing a song to the ones they love
*"I love you in a place where there's no space or time,
I love you for my life, You're a friend of mine
And when my life is over, Remember when we were together,
We were alone and I was singing this song to you"*
sometimes it just doesn't get any better,
under the wings of the sky and its multi-shaded blue blessings,
don't need counting, enumerating, all kind of blending going on
the old alone days been on the mind,
those laser clouded future gazing hazing days,
when you listened to music non-stop, but never sung along,
strange though, I wept then, and weeping now,
can't quite make the connection...
*guess my singing is still
just that bad*
<>
August 13, 2016
05:50pm
S.I.
Aug 13, 2016
Aug 13, 2016 at 5:38 PM UTC
In my fingerprint, the thirteenth groove from the nail,
The one that curves neatly, until it breaks
(A scar, I think)
That's you.
There is a braincell in my skull that is red, not grey:
Red for love; red for anger; red for that STOP light that made me stall
(The kind of complete stop that scrambles up your nerves)
That's you.
Every eighteenth heartbeat is you.
Every flex of my left hand little finger is you.
Every wish on a lost eyelash, carried away by salty currents, is you.
Every swiftly sheared blade of grass is you.
Every nerve ending in my lower lip is you.
Every cell of oxygen is you.
You are
Every
Hope
Every
Fear
Every
Dream
I ever had.
Put simply into words that in the end, are nothing;
You are everything to me.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
Time trickles down rocky faces.
The world is teetering on the edge of existence,
Its mountains sheared and valleys flooded.
She calls out night and day to ears deafened by
The gears of progress,
The clinking of gold,
And the seductive voices of legacy and permanence.
But time trickles down rocky faces,
Wearing away the marks we fought so hard to leave behind...
There are whispers in the wind,
Echoes in the deep dark unknown:
*Only one thing will endure,
Only one thing will not weather.*
They were lightened by kindness;
For a soul once shown love
Always carries a little warmth
Into the coldness of forever.
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 4:58 AM UTC
It's a fall down the stairs
the deliberate action of miss guided steps
rotates the axis of body and form
That crashes fast the nightmare.
I agonize to the pits decay
the frolicking thoughts
there displayed
against the window frame
the sheared glass
Where drips the red dye of life.
Crimson seeds populate the fragile
delicate balance of pain
To the nightly screams that draw
Fills one sore to the unenlightened refrain.
Ticking its seconds
awaiting some external cure
Bordering upon a fancy
Lusting deaths mask to sweep and bind
The lonely hour
The desperate sigh.
Raging inside
begging between the ******
and some hope for light
encouraged in the sinking
that choking plea
strangling the inconsistencies
I court the dark riders course
hoofs pounding nearer
the hearts remorse
Fades the gasp
Of suicide.
Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 1:07 PM UTC
Let me tell the tale,
Of an angel who was about to die.
A beautiful, altruistic angel who's wings were unable to fly.
The features that once held her aloft,
Were now sheared completely off.
Falling into the infinite expanse,
Pleading for one final chance.
The world around her passed by,
In blurs of different colours and sound.
As the forces of gravity,
Pushed her rapidly to the ground.
Pain inflamed inside of her,
Fear gnawed its way into her chest.
It was all just a blur,
Or simply just a test.
Luckily, this shattered angel was fortunate enough to be given a second chance.
A second chance to relive her life with every shade and hue.
Ever since this catastrophic occurrence,
She is grateful for what she had been through.
Because now she is able to cherish every heartbeat, every breath and every step like its her last.
When others look into her eyes,
They do not see a wingless angel.
But a girl who fell from the sky.
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
thread by thread it
is Cut.
scissors crafted from entwined roads
battered cities, unknowingly sheared away by miles
promises snipped.
blunt cost computed-
Paid in full.
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 12:27 PM UTC