"shiftless" poems
Time is teasing along with lush earth so pleasing,
The minutes of our youth are spent in toiled days
And sands are blowing the weld of our sold means,
Foundations of dust, the cries unheard, of the aged.
And then, as dream, you came from the starry skies
Blue and small as the ocean dot, forever fixed—
Reigning over the frozen, revolving moon that lies,
Dimly wakes in your fabled orbit, my fated ellipse.
Now, time tables and splits, renders me to eaves
Undone, my squandered youth was but a sad play
And I am clocked with wind, the geld of my dreams,
Had shiftless hands been more solid than my days.
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 10:54 PM UTC
And gusts a wind that never sleeps
When at the pond arrives a breathless boy,
Knees kneel within the reeds and muck
To glimpse distorted carp beneath.
He counts his boundless hunter's luck
As shiftless as a seaweed wreath,
Then baits the wand that bears his angler's ploy,
And gusts discern he plays for keeps.
This boy roguish
As fish are coy.
And silent in the swaying deeps
The drifting dance of carps who dream and wish
Is ceased by ripples from a splash --
Refractions of the surface shake
As sinks an enigmatic flash:
Allure from realms beyond the lake.
The one that hungers proves the bravest fish,
And silent, at the lure he leaps.
Bravery
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
idle, shiftless, indolent
not a care in the world
a white oblivion
of simple, peaceful, blissful
nothing
looming, threatening, impending
charged with energy
electricity just
hours away
gray consciousness
and lazy days
hair-raising, spine-chilling, nerve-racking
strikes of pure shock
mother nature’s roars
reverberating off the blackened firmament
drops of liquid vigor
crashing to the ground
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 5:31 PM UTC
There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. Dorothy's Kansas never looked so comforting, her black and white world never so safe--never so flat, so barren.
Didn't she learn her lessons? She caused such trouble! She gave Auntie Emm such a fright! That bump on the head must have caused her brain damage. After the "big storm" was only a memory, and the terrible twister only a town tale, Dorothy did it again.
She ventured out on her own.
Yet Mrs. Gulch was still a witch. And Dorothy's "nasty, little dog" still got into the garden. The sheriff was ready to track her down and clamp down on her for good! Running home frantically for help, Dorothy realized that Auntie Emm was still too busy ******** at her shiftless farmhands, henpecking tired, old Uncle Henry,
and he was just too cranky to care. The farmhands were supposed to be her friends, but they just started crabbing at her again.
They soon gave her what for. "Dot, didn't you learn a thing in life?" "Didn't we rescue you once from a pigpen?" "That heart of yours leads you in the wrong direction! " "Where are your brains, anyway?"
Heartbroken, naive Dorothy realized something that was quite profound. Her heart was always in the right place--she just needed the courage, the courage to know she was smart enough to make it on her own. So Dorothy packed her bags, especially remembering her red ruby slippers. She would never forget her loyal friend and sidekick, her beloved pooch, Toto. If she was going, he was going with her.
So there she stood, suitcases in hand, in her bleak, little, colorless world. Terrified, she stood upon the precipice. Fear or faith? And all of a sudden she was noticed again! Just what was she doing? Who did she think she was fooling? Was she crazy!?
"You'll never make it!", they all warned. "You don't know the first thing about how to live in a Technicolor world!"
"Sorry, I do love you", Dorothy answered back. "But I disagree and I will forward you my new address". So off she went finding the path down the yellow brick road.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 3:54 AM UTC
Six humans trapped by happenstance,
In bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
The first man held his back.
For of the faces round the fire
He noticed one was black.
The next man looking 'cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black mans face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in
death's still hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without
But died from the cold within.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 9:01 PM UTC
I drive home, slowly.
The trees lining the road look the way I feel:
Ambivalent.
Some of the leaves are brilliant
Shining he way this amber ring does
And some have flat warm tones
Like the ochres the shaman, in his trance,
Brushed onto the walls
Building a miracle at Lascaux.
The dead ones
Lay still
Until a big rig barrels by
And they fly up in circles
And settle back where they began-
They're shiftless, no better than you or me.
Oct 27, 2010
Oct 27, 2010 at 12:59 PM UTC
Shiftless, sifting the air,
Plunging gyrations,
Crow speak
Hackle, hacking;
Speckles the sky.
Saw the air whittle to smoke,
Black mar in the weir of wings
And mankind muddled in the wraith,
Slowly streams a bread trail
Forth and back;
Black bleeding.
I see your claw tracks,
Dark-digging-sparkle
Plain in the muck,
Needles threading,
A trail of stars.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 12:04 PM UTC
~~~
*A rich woman
Walked down the street
She met a workman she didn't greet.
But though they didn't
Stop to TALK
They were able
To exchange THOUGHTS...*
Hey! Look at me! I'm all that!
Think you're cool with that
baseball hat?
I'm in my designer clothes
I'm Dior from head to toe.
I have snakeskin shoes
And pure silk pants
My perfume comes
From Paris France...
**Designer Bags and golden rings
Jeweled tiaras and a
Real mink coat?
What to do with such trivial things?
Except wallow in the
Superficial joy they bring...
Please. Humour me
With stacks of DOUGH
That's street lingo
For cash you know.
I'll sit here and strum my guitar
Whilst I look up
And count the stars...
Please... take your spoils and go...
I don't have time for spoiled souls
I'll enjoy the things that matter most
While you celebrate
charades and toast.**
If life's a charade,
At least I'm a player!
You're sure not gonna
Run for Mayor!
C'mon DOUGH BOY
You know that you want
All the goodies that we flaunt!
Yes... I have a real MINK!
And my money has a STINK
But who supports
The people you are?
Why! You're nothing but
Shiftless POOR!
**I ain't gotta pay
to play this game
I got a Full Heart I'm all IN!
You can't just buy
Yourself some PEACE
I've learned life lessons
To pay my lease!
Your whole life is inside your wallet
And I'm sorry... but I must call it...
Inside your soul is
bankrupt and foreclosed
It's sad to see happiness is posed
Shiftless, classless and
OUT OF STYLE
But your pretty golden pennies
Ain't worth my while...
You've got cash, but it's just CRASS
Lady. Take your fortunes and
KISS MY BOOTS!!!**
WELL! I *never!
The last thing she thought
As she hurried away.
She's filthy rich NOW...
... but one day she'll PAY.*
(C) SoulSurvivor
(C) Frank Ruland
~~~
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 12:47 PM UTC
I am the voice that crept up the water.
Sleeping, not sinking. My arm hair
stood straighter, not softening in the lake.
Wake up. Open eyes. Gasp for air.
Dark black cool everywhere I looked.
No one tells you that drowning
isn't dying.
their voices pelted spit wads.
their fear launched missiles.
their apathy sank a princess.
I watched with my screaming eyes.
When I sank I surrendered;
shiftless, restful, still.
But I did not die.
Death is the worn wet whisper.
Death comes to those who wait.
Death embraces cell fish.
And I would know.
They swim all around me.
On the land, never the water.
To them the depths of this lake
ensured my silence.
Then I woke and saw nothing,
felt nothing, knew nothing,
except for the last breath that moved seagulls
and drew mermaids near.
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 12:19 PM UTC
A mantra of the shiftless souls
The weak and will less
Gutless wretches of world
With quivering quaking shaking legs
The brittle bones of those who cannot stand
Shout retreat at break or loss of their command
Their eyes scream run
When wisdom bids they fight for what they can
But their bridges they have burned,
Roads blocked and rivers ******
They flee from what they feel they cannot fix
And hide with weak and sordid tricks
From things they do not understand
Poised for desperate violence
They stutter uttering lies
Attempting to disguise
The fear within their minds
As they make their alibis
For those who question why?
Fear,
Is their master and their king
Fear for them, the driving thing
And they have given in
You cannot save them
They are lost so let them run
From the hot and burning sun
Let them make it for the hills
For the dark cold comfort of their caves
Where in time they learn
Courage for their soul to save
Or die in anguish
Never learning to be brave
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 1:42 AM UTC
Her shoulder slope
open to the sun
reveals the long road
to warmer sands,
where her heart beats
the waves in the ocean,
as the bass through boards
on her holy dance floor,
private, secluded.
Her trim of green
smells of a sweet
musk, patchouli, of
old cinnamon
I fill my lungs
I pretend that she's smoke,
invites and then guides
my journey toward her
sacred equator.
|||||||||||||||. . .
On the run, the run, on the run
There's a place to which I'd like to travel
But I've been there before THAT'S
HOW I GOT THIS WAY BY HAVING
HAPPINESS actualized and two heavy
hands to wipe it all away
Disintegrate, disintegrate
On the run, the run, on the run
Invitation is one thing -- I don't deserve
The want is with me the
heart is pure
This spirit, though
still broken from
whatever time before
today.
May 26, 2017
May 26, 2017 at 2:34 AM UTC
As I review the periodic table of elements
I have resorted to some thing so Idiotic
That the scientist have adored the relevance
of some infantile youthful designation.
I wondered... if one hydrogen atom
became two in what state,
what would two hydrogens be in another state.
Shiftless bonds, or double 0 eight.
Is H2o oxygen or is it O2 in rain drops.
How exactly do I love your poetry.
Do I breath as do tears fall from my eyes.
Are we all spying in on the great love.
Does a capitol L make us doves?
Ive never had such a crush,
To turn down. How much of a hug
is a lie to another friend. Ive had so many
affairs. That the friar asked me to spell affiar again
aware of a fraudien slip.
I listed turned and down again I went as
I listened to my mother speaking to frenchmen.
The diety, the diet, the destruction of language, I just
stood there smiled and again I said... I wish you knew
what you were saying in Latin as the
holy spirit convenced him. She said in uncertain
latin, the angle (angel) condemed us to understanding demi gods
and taro cards from matter to benevolence.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 5:52 PM UTC
Shiftless, sifting the air,
Plunging gyrations,
Crow speak
Hackle, hacking;
Speckles the sky.
Saw the air whittle to smoke,
Black mar in the weir of wings
And mankind muddled in the wraith,
Slowly streams a bread trail
Forth and back;
Black bleeding.
I see your claw tracks,
Dark-digging-sparkle
Plain in the muck,
Needles threading,
A trail of stars.
Jun 5, 2012
Jun 5, 2012 at 9:15 PM UTC
Shiftless, sifting the air,
Plunging gyrations,
Crow speak
Hackle, hacking;
Speckles the sky.
Saw the air whittle to smoke,
Black mar in the weir of wings
And mankind muddled in the wraith,
Slowly streams a bread trail
Forth and back;
Black bleeding.
I see your claw tracks,
Dark-digging-sparkle
Plain in the muck,
Needles threading,
A trail of stars.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 5:31 PM UTC
When I was a boy I fell out the pocket
I fell out the pocket
I dropped down
Left instead to the beats in my head
Which called me ahead to a timeline
Where I prettied up the ambience to the end rhyme
Given a first rate view into the sounds; I drew
Wrote and only knew how I could combine
intertwine and multitudinous vines
of personalized style defined
into my lockstep, rock depth
So do I search for meaning in a land of intrigue
Do I look for a song in the silence, in the air that I breathe?
Or given the choice do I add to the mix?
Given the choice now do I voice that I can add to this rift?
Break open the barricades and give a name to this shift?
Give it a flow, give it a flare, give a decision, commit
Bring it in low, give it a lift, give it a rhythm to drift
Don't give into shiftless insistency, sometimes cadence begs immediacy
Give it a rest, give it a pause, know that some of it hurts
But give it the Barricadence, I think you'll find that it works
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 3:40 AM UTC
A Coughing man with a baseball cap, and
a girl in green scratching and caressing
her tanless velvety legs.
Water cascading from the
unnaturally made stoic fountain...
And the man with the phone
in his ear, scrapes by my sunlit chair.
Couples lying and teasing each other
soaking long lost rays together
with eyes smiling for one another...
Palms playing and swaying in the cool breeze
protecting and shadowing those
who chose the shade over sun.
And a man with a phone attached to his ear
glides pass the unsuspecting couple.
The owl and the eagle peering and
observing from their precarious perches
lifeless in their tachadermal state
expecting more of the very same
yet only a busy signal leaves its mark.
shiftless, shirtless man on the shelf above
gingerly stepping into the steamless pool
again the man with the phone in his ear
ambling and gambling with his call
and only he knows what we don’t.
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 2:32 PM UTC
Tortured Soul
They who speak fowl language walk with a cadre of devils. Can you send evil ahead destroy peace
Bind the very air loose your enemy to condemn your character in every sound reasonable persons
Hearing then expect the path to lead to tranquility and honest questions to flow back to the soul.
Your progress already fraught with challenges your need find and discover peaceable persons of
Integrity of depth and sure footing your baseness draws the brittle the shiftless to your life they will
Come in droves your voice and tongue unbridled it has not found the wisdom of being circumspect. Your
Ultimate goal go into the world study look in your unique way at it blessings and benefits train your eyes
To see perfection while it sets in and is robbed entirely in imperfection your gift and task give your vision
To those in this area who are sightless. You can be the beguiler the artisan the creator of magic casting
Spells through your own lens you are trying to become an honest guide to those without the gift their
Finding and knowing this subject is dependent on you but you must first conquer yourself and posses a
True quality of nobility where do you want to display your work in dives and back alleys or on walls that
Others have enriched by their keen sense of duty and singular vision. First the work must begin within
No one makes a mark without the hardship the dedication that results in rarefaction the norm the
Mundane can speak without end but no one pays anything for their empty ramblings. You go to the halls
Of higher they can’t teach you true genius you must open every source of your being demand perfection
Beyond the fair and easy paths look into the soul of the people produce a living edifice that will enable
Enlighten encourage free those bound give them soaring room your dream can carry them to heights
Unknown the first door you must pass through is indifference this blight destroys everything in its path
The spirit has no bounds you alone can tie God given possibility in knots with under rated living.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 2:03 PM UTC
a lonely incandescent bulb
hangs from the ceiling
its loud light
no longer muted
by a bug filled dome
shattered years ago
by a long armed drunken rage
or perhaps
by the silent sober passing of age
only the room remembers
the weary, the hopeful, the lost
who sit by the window
waiting to be found
watching the tenacious tumbleweeds
skitter down the empty streets
dodging dust devils
on their way
to plaintive plains
and boiling brown sky
the new shiftless shifting home
of soil ****** dry
the gray graveyards
for drought drenched dreams
of those who now sit in the
rent-by-the-week room
in incandescent gloom
staring
at a false prophetic sky
with no tears left to cry
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 22, 2012 at 2:15 PM UTC
Time is teasing along with lush earth so pleasing,
The minutes of our youth are spent in toiled days
And sands are blowing the weld of our sold means,
Foundations of dust, the cries unheard, of the aged.
And then, as dream, you came from the starry skies
Blue and small as the ocean dot, forever fixed—
Reigning over the frozen, revolving moon that lies,
Dimly wakes in your fabled orbit, my fated ellipse.
Now, time tables and splits, renders me to eaves
Undone, my squandered youth was but a sad play
And I am clocked with wind, the geld of my dreams,
Had shiftless hands been more solid than my days.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 11:19 AM UTC
Please try to preserve the sleepless innocence,
It shows the most trying of souls through shiftless inter-changables.
I beg for mercy from these woes,
For there are few others i can relate to these days!
As my body transforms,
And my body warps,
For once in my life
I anticipate the bitter cold!
And i’d rather not hear you speak such banter any longer,
For it is far too much to bare,
Especially in such times
Where both shoulder blades and ribs
Cave in on an aching pity of tirelessness–
Bloodshot eyes and arthritis
Aching from the forearms down.
Academia has yet to begin.
I wring my skin of an aching burn.
The body is weary and demands rest as i can expect it.
Coincidentally, demand is on the rise–
Or could it just be another ideology,
One that explains the universe to the mind?
Depriving the body teaches one how to survive…
Jun 14, 2010
Jun 14, 2010 at 8:52 PM UTC
Fire,
Turns witches into meat
And spends nights with marshmallows.
Earth,
Riddled with growth.
Air and Water win.
Stick prizes on these shiftless things,
The see-through drowners that score absolute zero.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 7:29 PM UTC
The greatest eye, seeing as I see: infinity infinitely,
Passing and being amidst mere seconds, touching glassily
Fringes of the smallest universe of me,
The happier side of the sublime, distant fingers of distant peaks
Combing the edge of time.
I’ve stared at the stars too long, we saw them dance out of space
More dimensions than a singularity, for it opens up
As hearts do in each other placed.
From fixéd gaze and placidity, I stride in awe to you
We could feel one with acatelepsy
Have what some consider few, and few consider all
Intertwined by the darkness between the dying stars’
Existence, in that both skins a whole that glistens.
Of that place, I in constant drawn, that vacuity, that candoris
A promise that, regardless what season, my face feels apricity
And careless are the places as numinous are the lariots
Whether through Hell or usurping Pheobus’ chariot
Some hope may birth within the open dark
The treasured lunar retinue, a web of inspiration, generations to come;
That’s what keeps me hopeful here, a shy star in the void
Across it all, across life-lines I shall have,
Before you ever meet me, long since dissipated—
Come out to see me and play, or are you simply? Belated?
In that web, the growing ever-on, generative swan-songs,
And the one I wish on may befall a stellar death, my sky
Alighted by one less, a part of me to the cold and shiftless earth
That though the stars may fall, these hearts may flash chimerical
Etched limpid in the palimpsest of memory, they are, they will
Hearts of the little universe, consumptive and resilient
And kept ever on, there beyond Jupiter and his moons thereof
In which chaos finds itself bathed and bound by Love.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
Shiftless, sifting the air,
Plunging gyrations,
Crow speak
Hackle, hacking;
Speckles the sky.
Saw the air whittle to smoke,
Black mar in the weir of wings
And mankind muddled in the wraith,
Slowly streams a bread trail
Forth and back;
Black bleeding.
I see your claw tracks,
Dark-digging-sparkle
Plain in the muck,
Needles threading,
A trail of stars.
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 7:50 PM UTC
Shiftless, sifting the air,
Plunging gyrations,
Crow speak
Hackle, hacking;
Speckles the sky.
Saw the air whittle to smoke,
Black mar in the weir of wings
And mankind muddled in the wraith,
Slowly streams a bread trail
Forth and back;
Black bleeding.
I see your claw tracks,
Dark-digging-sparkle
Plain in the muck,
Needles threading,
A trail of stars.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 1:34 PM UTC