"shovelling" poems
I
This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.
II
Dawn freshens, Her climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends,
Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs
Men long for news.
III
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or to visit relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers' declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled on the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.
IV
Thousands are still asleep,
Dreaming of terrifying monsters
Or of friendly tea beside the band in Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
But shall wake soon and hope for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
4.7k
On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.
The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In Cassidy's haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight
To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.
As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.
And I thought of the wasps' nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.
The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.
I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,
The best job at the mill
With plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.
Maybe Mary might call round...
And then I came to the haggard gate,
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.
3.1k
#
*I was shovelling drifted snow outside today
and was overcome again
by the warmth of that beautiful,
deep feeling.
You may never understand
the need to push through the mundane
and into the deep, central Core
of the one you care most about.
For you,
in your current world, that is not attainable..
but for me.. looking at you..
I know you very much have that deeply-gorgeous,
extremely worthwhile attainability in you.
Without connecting deeply with one such as you,
I would just be sliding superficially along the surface
throughout this entire 'life' here..
Knowing there is a whole world of untapped closeness
lying just under the status-quo
of the normal 'everyday' operating level.
That is not saying we would necessarily be ******
at all
It just means that there is, sadly
such a huge amount of giving up of the Beautiful
in order to continue on skating along the surface.
That is why I do what I do, and say the things I say
late at night.
During the day, I am operating
out there on the "everyday" level.
At night, I am connecting into the unfathomable depths
of the most lusciously-beautiful gold mine I have ever known.
I can't do the "surface" thing with you, Young-love..
In fact.. I won't.
You get that in your marriage,
and pretty much everywhere else around you.
I refuse to be a part of that tremendously sad list.
You will never not be that deeply luscious gold mine..
You will never not be fully worthy of the attempt.
You want to be left alone.
.. ok.*
#
Dec 15, 2022
Dec 15, 2022 at 7:28 PM UTC
ticket to the train station
tempted to train my motivation
singing swan songs for my salvation
toking for a moments vacation, coaching vocation
warp the world around my thumb
sway to the beats of my drum
angels pick me up, scared to become
all the things i have been ashamed of
iridescent sparkles that were judged as vain
steady shovelling the **** shaving down the over grown bushes
the path was there all along; i see her now
what the **** was i even doing
Apr 11, 2023
Apr 11, 2023 at 12:29 PM UTC
Proud I was with my shoveling,
Moving snow to the end of the drive,
Lifing loads, shovelling high.
The armlifts created pyramids,
I was as proud as Pharoh coud be.
These pyramids
Could well entomb me.
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 8:19 PM UTC
The first time he came into the light
He thought that his eyes had gone,
The sun was shining, ever so bright
With nothing to focus on,
They led him out to sit on a rock
And hacked off his ball and chain,
It took a week of his ticket of leave
Before he could see again.
Richard Dawson, a broken man
Had finally done his time,
He’d spent three years in shovelling coal
In the colony’s first coal mine,
They said it was only his just desserts
For a pocket, picked in the Strand,
And sent him out on a convict ship
To the hell of Van Diemen’s Land.
At first they set him to breaking rocks
For laying the first rough roads,
He worked while tethered in iron chains
That chafed his skin and his bones,
He wasn’t allowed to take a rest
From swinging the pick or axe,
For the guards would follow the line of men
And lay the whip on their backs.
He lost his God and he lost his soul
Or he thought that he had, out there,
Where men were hung as a matter of fact
And nobody seemed to care,
He slaved four years with the other men
But his future was looking bleak,
When he hit a man who was guarding them
He was sent to Saltwater Creek.
If ever there was a hell on earth
It was called Saltwater Creek,
The devil had got in the minds of men
And they formed a barbaric clique.
The cells were buried, were underground,
There wasn’t a spark of light,
And the men were taken out of the mine
When it was dark, at night.
They started before the sun was up,
They finished when it was gone,
Were locked and chained in their pitch dark cells
In a terror that just went on,
And while they were buried and mining coal
They’d think of the old country,
While their judge sat cool in his stately robes
And finished his morning tea.
A man turns into a surly brute
When he’s kicked and cursed, and beat,
But take the sun from his daily run
And his soul admits defeat.
Richard Dawson, later in life
At night, would take to the street,
And never could quite explain to his wife
The Hell of Saltwater Creek.
David Lewis Paget
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 5:16 PM UTC
Dig, dig and dig the dirt,
Sweat stains occupy most of the t-shirt,
Energetic, powerful bursts,
Keep shovelling until it hurts,
Hard hat caste system,
Know who's in charge and who's the assistant,
Burger vans appear wouldn't want to miss them,
A line of ketchup to add some vitamins,
Cancer sticks help to break up the day,
For torrential rain certain builders pray,
Happily take no play; no pay.
Dec 15, 2018
Dec 15, 2018 at 1:37 PM UTC
Round and round we go, two and thrice in throw,
Whilst hand in hand in fairy land.
We dance and prance around the rockpool,
Until the last one cannot stand.
I lay down in that busy rockpool and finally open my heart unto the floods,
This once impregnable fortress finally lowers its rusted and seized port cullis one last time.
With the moss of ages and the barnacles uprooted and torn away it lowers its decaying drawbridge,
To let the tide wash in and carry out on its ebb, all of its ache, sadness and regrets far out into the vastness of the ocean.
The soul and spirit is empty you see,
The heart has now been opened for the waves and tides.
There is no fire nor fuel left in the furnace,
Not even a dying ember nor spark, but only a withered rose stem which finally succumbed to the dark..
All that resides left in incredible depths, Is fine *** ash,
Only good for shovelling up and scattering on the fields to maybe start again.
And those vines of that crop which fed once in abundance will grow strong, tall, fine and straight like youthful men,
Feeding off of the nourishment of past memories.
In time when these mighty vines look back to their roots,
Their hearts will ache to find their mighty benefactor.
Once again they will return to that ancestral home,
To *** some ash and plant a striking red rose in that tended bed.
Without their knowing a buried ember disturbed is glowing,
and forgotten roots, soon shoot and expand.
To once again become the source of wisdom, the all knowing,
Soon to bring life back to this long lost forgotten land.
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 9:14 AM UTC
my scars own me
deep and dark
building bridges
future
present
past
my thoughts haunt me
spreading doubt
shovelling ditches
pull
us
out
Jul 7, 2018
Jul 7, 2018 at 6:24 AM UTC
When I return I touch the soil
I used to think so much of the sky the soil
in my hands how much thirst is there
I could clutch it and save us all
the rain
might spill out of my grandmother's mouth
if she strains her wheat-dry hands
long enough of all the liquid blessings
of the church she crossed again and again
and the holiness would clear my grandfather's
eyes and
the rain
would spill out. I travel much
through skies thinking of the soil
the soil looks like earth clay mud
red rock heart
brown stone
cool coal mould
dark black hiding cavity gold
water sold concrete brick houses
acacia trees
the soil it looks like me
and the things that made me:
I cannot take you seriously america
what are your bullets supposed to do to me?
And europe?
Your columns? They lean!
much unlike my grandfather's back.
Have you see the man handle a *****
The shovelling he could do? The cows
and goats he can end? The snakes
that fear him? These are my hands.
Imagine the thought that this soil is not
enough.
Look at my hands. Look.
What do you perceive?
I see everything. All at once and never.
And still it is yet
to rain.
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 9:08 AM UTC
They were prison cells
Driving deeper into me
Watching my colour drain
Clearing all sorrow
And then the heat would come
* * *
Gently shovelling away the clouds
Poised on the mountains on the horizon
Creeping in like rolling carpets
Gorging on the ropes of life
And then digging in tightly
What the slips of sentience said
Yellowing grain fields and dimes
Hearty bellows on the chimes of the day
Greeting the returning milkmaids
Reaching out to the night
Dreams and fantasies always simmer
Dissipate in the breeze of the dawn
Trimming the woods of their roots
Grooming the phantoms lovingly
And wandering stars.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 10:08 AM UTC
It was all silk and sawdust
Mamas skirts rustled a sunday mass
and dad wore his bowler hat tilted at an angle
(dirk bogarde -like look)
But he was a farmer.
soon after the service was over
he'd hang his hat by the cowsheds
and wallow in green slushy poo
irrespective of how much it stank
and how natural he looked
throwing sawdust over the caked green pancakes
and shovelling all that crap into a corner,
with sundays best clothes on!
Mama insisted he change first
but no. "The cows need attention
as much as god does, Mama"
We did not argue with his farmyard philosophy
but that's where we cut our teeth
and tasted a mans love for his animals
both human and beast and that's where
we understood that sunhats, bowlers
and polished walking sticks
were just statements that didn't come
from a book- but society. Somehow
he mixed the two learnings
to get along with everything.
I missed him when he milked his last cow
and lay down forever in that quiet evening
as the sun set in an orange sky. The brightest star
that night climbed over the eastern ridges
to grace the night. Dad?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
This is my country
the one my fathers fought for
the one they went to war for
the one they ploughed the land and lived and died for and
what the **** for?
So those rotten wheeler stealers and ***** dollar dealers and some half bent bobby peelers could rip us off and laugh about it,
leave us shovelling **** and forget about it?
My old man did not fight for that lot of ***** in the city men,those with no mercy or pity men,
but then again my old man's dead and gone,shuffled off his mortal coil and now ploughs six foot underneath the soil.
But
this is still my land and sod that band of thieves,one day there'll be no crime,no criminals and little time for them to rob us blind,
sweet shangri la and ***** me sideways near and far 'cause that ain't going to be while those city men steal from you and me.
And your dad my dad went to war,just ask yourself,
what the **** for?
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 7:27 PM UTC
I,m serving my sentence
Four weeks hard time
Being unemployed
Is my only crime
They sent me to felling
I did,nt think it was funny
But I had to serve my time
Or lose all my money
So I turned up on my course
Nervous on my first day
Then I met dave
Induction out the way
Straight down the factory
To the bottom shed
Putting paper into dumpy bags
Really blagged my head
So I shovel people,s ****
It Destroys my soul
But it pays Daves mortgage
And keeps 25 people off the dole
Then worked on the balers
Handballed cardboard and paper
Got to do the boring bumpers
But dave said I can do them later
Might get to go out on the van
Collecting people's ****
But it's a break from the shovel
If only for a bit
Got 25 boxes
To empty for Steve
More ****** dumpy bags
It's hard to believe
The lad I started with
His name was John
He managed one day
Now he is gone
Now he,s back to the dole
To see his advisor
Sanctioned to pieces
I would of been wiser
Just keep my head down
Do whatever I,m told
So my lovely advisor
Don,t stop my dole
Done 3days now
Just 25 to go
No good moaning
Just get on with the show
It's really not so bad
Shovelling people's ****
And it's that kind of job
We're someone's got to do it
So if you don,t like shovelling ****
We're you don't get paid a bob
Get of your **** of the dole
And get yourself a job
No offence to the **** shovelers
All over the land
but I,m a man of verse
Not a **** shovelling fan
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 12:50 PM UTC
*why should there be a medical diagnosis of pronoun use, when the pronoun they is treated as show-off problematic and paranoiac naturally, to ease the conversation?*
the day when the tetra gram ah tonne
met the compass of the crux
and turned the sacred YHWH
into N.E.W.S. -
to make it easier, the crucifix,
an abstracted square - collapsed -
they are indeed shoving ***** at as,
with prayers at the Hagia Sophia,
they're shovelling ***** at us,
because they're realising that the power
they claim to have is ineffective,
hence their need for religious topics
to organise legions, to utilise religion
is to finalise political ineffectiveness;
political apathy breeds
religiosity and attachment to symbolism
rather than geometry.
Jun 8, 2016
Jun 8, 2016 at 8:44 PM UTC
The snow fell heavily
and laid a white blanket
over everything
from the top
of the plum trees
to the ground of the garden.
There was no school
as the school bus
couldn’t get through
the narrow lanes
high in snow fall.
You knew you’d not
see Jane that day
which was a shame
as you wanted to tell her
about the bullfinch
you had seen down the lane
by the small stream.
You looked out
of your bedroom window;
your siblings were outside
in their boots,
wrapped up warm
playing in the snow,
laughing.
You wondered what
Jane was doing;
was she looking out
at it like you,
or if she was outside
doing things.
The farm workers
had to cross
the deep snow
to the farm
to milk the cows.
You decided
to offer your help
to get the cows in
and help weigh the milk,
rather than standing
looking out getting bored.
On the other side
of the hamlet,
Jane was helping her father
clear snow from the pathway
to the house to the church.
She was wrapped up
in coat and scarf and gloves
and was getting quite warm.
She mused on you,
wondering what
you were doing,
wishing she could
have met you,
but the road
was too deep
to walk to your
parents’ cottage.
She shovelled away snow
to the sides of the path;
her father was at
the other end by the church
shovelling away snow
at that end.
You crossed the field
in your knee-high boots,
following the footsteps
made by the farm workers,
and into the farm and dairy.
They let you help them
get the cows
into the milking-shed
and weigh the milk
on the huge scales
in the buckets they gave you
for each cow
and you wrote it down
on the list.
Jane stood
for a few moments
getting her breath,
listening to the sound
of the rooks
in the high trees.
She wished you
could be there
beside her,
holding her hand,
your fingers
between hers.
She still felt your kiss
on the cheek
you gave her
last week.
Feb 2, 2019
Feb 2, 2019 at 4:41 AM UTC
Cesspit
The **** shovelling soldiers are sent off to war
To dig latrines so their soldier brethren can ****
Not in peace but to empty their guts between fights
Ukrainians have other ideas they want to **** them all
Dead soldiers and ******** diggers means more Russians
Who can no longer fight or hurt innocent Ukrainians
How many Ivan cesspit ***** men have been eradicated?
**** them all so the soldiers **** their pants before dying
From Ukrainian bullets and high tech Allied weapons
The more the better in this video game war
May 7, 2023
May 7, 2023 at 10:38 PM UTC
The sun shined down on our heads
At the pond, between clouds.
The water was cold.
A man adjusted his static-y radio behind us,
Tuning in the Tigers game.
I’d feel this way anywhere.
I decided,
I’d feel this way anywhere.
Surrounded by pine mountain beauty,
In a parked trailer in the forest,
In Southern Ohio, with friends, in a house
Driving in the van, between Kentucky and Tennessee,
With my parents, in the garage,
I’d feel this way anywhere, at least after a couple of days,
Especially after a couple of weeks.
I get restless, and wonder,
While I’m shovelling piles of mulch into a wheel barrow,
Why am I doing this? After graduating from college, why
I like the sun and working,
And Voltaire and everybody said go back to the garden,
Get back to the garden,
And in 2018 this is what that translates to,
On my knees spreading mulch with my hands
In an Astrophysicists’ backyard
Where there’s a fish pond, and big green shade
And we eat on the patio while him and his wife
Talk about how they built a cabin up north,
How they hauled the wood in three-quarters of a mile
And suddenly, I feel it again
I need to do that,
Why am I doing this when I could be doing that?
While I’m stacking dishes of breakfast foods on large trays,
And telling others I’m behind them,
Snow is falling silently outside and it feels good and bad.
When I’m quietly reading a book in a classroom,
And suddenly look up to realize I’m surrounded by 13-year-olds.
"How did I get here''?
In the spring I’m leaving.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 5:13 PM UTC
March came in
like a tired Zebra
being run down
by a pride of Lions.
But no, not now,
she's going out like
a ***** old Mule
kicking in the stall.
As you know, mules are *****
you couldn't have said it better yourself.
Spring comes in March,
I'd like to know who ever
thought that date up.
I've been shovelling snow
while it's ten below.
I went out and bought
a rake a ***** and a ***
Wishful thinking on my part
the ground is still hard.
I'm going to plant flowers
And raise a high fence
so the Deer's mouth will water
but it will get no feed.
Good riddance March
and your frigid temperatures
I don't want to see your face
for another year.
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 3:59 PM UTC
Cobwebs hang white on the frosty air as digging begins
A lone bird on a bush makes its high call,
sharp as the wind through a broken window
a toothpick of noise
bouncing off damp bricks, that look as though they might fall softly
to the wet grass below
and lay hidden by tears
Is there anything more profound
than the mournful sound
of a shovelling ***** as it fills in a grave
and closes the ground
Dec 10, 2020
Dec 10, 2020 at 6:02 AM UTC
(20 minute poetry)
I could do without
making this journey today
do without working and
just stay away
do without misery
do without gloom
just stay at home
make do with a book in my room.
I've got 20 minutes to decide
do I stay in this cattle truck
or get the **** off
and take the
next
ride back?
The thought drowns in depression
there's a lesson here,
a question
I fear needs an answer.
I suppose Friday is always like this
the end of a hard week
the long and the short of it is
do I make this journey or not?
And there's this **** stood behind me who stinks
jeez
I don't want to whisper
B O
I want to scream out
underarm deodorant
this is what life is about.
But it's fine
I'm getting down with it
putting the ***** in and
shovelling ****
It'll be okay
I'll **** a few brain cells
****** more dreams
bleed out some more life
stifle my screams,
It'll be fine.
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 2:44 AM UTC
Hand me a torch and a pair of gloves,
I’ll be shovelling through snow until dusk.
The ice in my mind slips me off path,
It’s dark and cold and windy, but I laugh,
Because winter can only last so long,
And I remember snow can be fun to play upon.
It’s thick but melts in puddles on the floor;
That’s what it usually takes, nothing less or more.
And I realize my strength doesn’t belong on the shore
Where the waves so easily take away the pain,
Rolls me under and hands me a slice of pride a day.
No, comfort is hard coming, and my shortness of breath
Leads me to know, my strength
Hasn’t yet met its death.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 9:49 AM UTC
I apologize,
for I am broken
and for all the things
I've left unspoken.
I criticize
myself, every time
you're around
for within myself I looked and reasoned
and there is not a cause to be found.
I am tainted
by my past renditions
left me in this strange condition
for more- is never enough,
but away these marred feelings I tuck.
But, it's okay
I swear I'm fine
I'm just losing myself in my mind
she calls me through sleep and time
to whisper horror stories late at night.
Lady Dressed in black,
disintegrating yet still whole
crying, as I sputter
shovelling dark, demonic coal.
Into the fire, she burns,
down beneath, revealing
something I never wanted to see
but she showed it to me anyway.
Held my hair and made me stay,
made me touch, made me play
made me say I like it
I swear I like it
I do.
it's really hard to describe
exactly what I've been through.
I've recited it enough in my mind,
I'd like to explain it to you.
I'd like to believe I could
if you were to ever bring it up.
but whenever I try to talk about it
the words always get stuck.
Jan 14, 2018
Jan 14, 2018 at 11:32 PM UTC
One smiles and smokes,
And ryes 'n cokes,
While claiming one's
Forever broke,
As one simultaneously
Takes a ****
How does one
Manage,
At all
To cope,
Binging while
One quips a joke.
Has one found
The ancient code
The alchemist couldnt't
For making gold;
Or a money-tree,
A gem-studded bank,
Where wealth is found
By shaking free.
At times I shake
Like those leafs
When worn down by
One's Poor me, pleas.
I think I know
How one can binge:
It's all the Bull
You're shovelling in.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 4:04 PM UTC
Death does not necessarily involve the bleed
And the end does not necessarily mean
Our worlds will crumble.
We know not of our conscience
Or the creatures we ****
Murderers, masters of malevolence, we are.
Our inner light has faded long ago;
Remorse could not handle our actions
So he fled in the dead of night
With only our nightmares to cling to as a ********** of what is right
We create laws only to break them as we construct a chaos we can no longer control
We create children only to break them as we surround them with the filth that we have become
Shovelling ash into their lungs, as if subduing them with chemicals allows us to regain the influence that we have lost so long ago
And ever since that day we strive for some form of power
We bury our integrity like bombs beneath our homes shaking the foundation of a place laced with false security.
Earthquakes, hurricanes and tornados
An acceptance of disaster.
And it’s all in your mind.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 8:33 AM UTC