"toughened" poems
I am the ******
Singer of songs,
Dancer...
Softer than fluff of cotton...
Harder than dark earth
Roads beaten in the sun
By the bare feet of slaves...
Foam of teeth... breaking crash of laughter...
Red love of the blood of woman,
White love of the tumbling pickaninnies...
Lazy love of the banjo thrum...
Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage,
Loud laughter with hands like hams,
Fists toughened on the handles,
Smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles,
Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life
of the jungle,
Brooding and muttering with memories of shackles:
I am the ******
Look at me.
I am the ******
17.4k
Nine little candles
Standing strong
Against the wind
Through the night for so long
Three white candles
Three extinguished toughened fighters
Because one black candle
Had to burn brighter
The one black candle
With all these tricks
Blew out the three white candles
And then there were six
Six little candles
Melting down
But black candle's light is growing dimmer
hope is no where to be found
Black candle's not a candle now
Now she's just a lit fuse
When time runs out until the explosion
Then she will know what it's like to lose
Six little candles
Has lost all but two
The former black candle
And one white candle left too
But even flames can whisper rumors
The burning fuse is done
She lost the other eight white candles
And then there was one.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 11:32 AM UTC
I wouldn't even recognize you,
nor you I.
How we have changed and grown,
how the years and loves
have formed us.
How the trials have toughened
or beaten us.
I hope you are well.
I hope that the world has not
stricken the love from you,
and that the lives which
surround you and which you surround
still smile upon your kind soul.
I hope you have not been beaten too much.
I hope you have faced down more trials
than have faced down you,
and that the things which you have conquered
have been strengthening instead of
diminishing to your spirit.
Of all hopes, I hope that you still
find a reason to smile
every day.
Dec 21, 2017
Dec 21, 2017 at 2:47 PM UTC
The body remembers, though it has been
four years since the summer you shattered your
knee but still limped out across the continent
to Boston to see him you idiot and
this is the fourth summer you've placed between
yourself and the last pin and the last *****
your body remembers, though in the
torturous lengthening of fused and toughened tissues
the bad leg is finally catching up,
and the scar with its ten numb inches of
puckered track has come to fade bone white
against your skin
but it’s still stored somewhere
in your sockets or cells and when you fall off your bike you still cry
Though you’re not really hurt your body remembers
So that when you’re confronted with their engagement photo
(you didn’t even know he was seeing anyone)
the darkened garden at the Plymouth Plantation
begins to bloom up around you before you can stop it
like a seizure or a vision, and you’re there again
trespassing after him through shadowy pines
and night-damp atlantic air
to where the white chairs encircle the altar.
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 12:17 AM UTC
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You've worn a badge of shame.
I say, the night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark
And the walls have been steep.
But today, voices of old spirit sound
Speak to us in words profound,
Across the years, across the centuries,
Across the oceans, and across the seas.
They say, draw near to one another,
Save your race.
You have been paid for in a distant place,
The old ones remind us that slavery's chains
Have paid for our freedom again and again.
The night has been long,
The pit has been deep,
The night has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
The hells we have lived through and live through still,
Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish
Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise,
And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.
I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground,
I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love,
I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference,
Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts,
Let us come together and revise our spirits,
Let us come together and cleanse our souls,
Clap hands, let's leave the preening
And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,
Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation,
Courtesy into our bedrooms,
Gentleness into our kitchen,
Care into our nursery.
The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain
We are a going-on people who will rise again.
And still we rise.
4.3k
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
3.5k
~and for Harlan, who loved this one best~
*"for tandem is the ever-changing, graying color of their fierce attached tenacity"
waking/walking in
careful pacing regular lock steps,
like new cadets, counting cadence,
in perfect silent, almost motionless,
except for the minuscule quivering of
slightly parted moving lips
these two elders,
still now plebes,
freshmen
but of a latter, graduated stage,
demonstrating robustly
the slow shuffle-along,
a well practiced dance conjured
'in tandem'
her arm, crooked in his,
his other hand,
in protective custody of a
knight's armored chain glove
encasing hers,
he, shuffling just,
a precise, intended half-a-beat slower
lest she ever think
that she, ever be a drag upon him
hair, his,
threaded with daily,
new arriving grays,
proudly accepted
as the privilege of
graceful aging
hers,
disguised with periodic outings,
outings for the hidings of life's bookmarks,
conceding nothing ever to
time's lunatic desire to separate them
modest in dress,
styling hints of pasts' elegant,
the man's hat defiant,
daringly jaunty angled,
a small scarf to handbag knotted,
matching his Windsor knotted tie
the passers-by, all smile,
the signal charm of an
end game processional,
thinking so sweet,
yet mine eyes detect more,
something
hardy and radical
a fierce, fierce fierceness,
both fighters in the resistance,
armed with tandem tenacity,
ground given,
but only inches surrendered,
wounds resisted by
scar skin toughened
by the caress of ions bonding
under the pressure
of atomic level mutuality
worn out,
well past Purple Hearts,
no capitulation feared,
to the ever changing,
enemies' new disguises,
they,
a two person platoon,
each,
having the other's back
and I burst into tears on the street,
a train of out loud moans,
even groans emitted,
like a string of perfect pearls
breaking,
clattering on an asphalt terrain
weeping
not
from visions of the inevitable,
sighing
not
from the certitude of a
cycle's uptime ending*
but jealous furious by this reminder delightful,
angry at myself, for having lost so many wasted years,
mine, the loss greatest, for absent was the
fierce tenacity of tandem
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 8:41 PM UTC
Did it take us long to walk over to the broken people,
Letting our compassion change us for a while,
I have not become a saint with an act of kindness,
I am still looking for my oasis in this wasteland,
Everything else is a passing breeze.
The sorrow that filled them in those dark hours
Was my elixir, as I walked forward,
writing my testimonies in the lives I meet on my way.
I have felt grains of sand with my fingertips, my blood
is fatigued, in its course through my flesh,
My veins are distended, toughened, and yet,
They do not tear, and this limbo between
Pain and liberation is Peace within a calamity.
My soliloquy is a bare rasping breath of wind,
Coursing through the streets which led home once,
But are now the lanes of memory, stale in their impotence,
Stinging in their truth, that my existence left behind marks
in the water I bathed in, in the bed I slept in,
in the books I read, which I held,
in the bandages I bled, over the wounds I tried to heal.
On the flag I tried to save, I have wept, Longing
for this journey to end, so I may rest a while.
The diseased have suffered their sickness with stoicism.
I have tried to heal them, succeeded,
failed with a few,
and wondered in the power of Mortality.
My oasis lies in the peaks of the wasteland, I can see it now,
A haze, a sliver of sunlight in this dark wasteland,
Past this murky slush of relationships,
Beyond the cliffs of defeat, and past the rivers
Of Self-loathing criticism.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
Often I lost myself in the sea,
my ears filled with fresh-cut flowers
my tongue filled with love and anguish.
Often I lost myself in the sea,
as I am lost in the hearts of children.
No one when giving a kiss
fails to feel the smile of faceless people.
No one who touches a newborn child,
forgets the immobile skulls of horses.
Because the roses search the forehead,
for the toughened landscapes of bone,
and Man's hands have no fate,
but to imitate roots, under the ground.
As I am lost in the hearts of children,
often I lost myself in the sea.
Ignorant of water, I go searching,
for death, in light, consuming me.
2.4k
My soul is tailgating the tour van of some band from SF that takes themselves a bit to seriously
My soul is somewhere in the woods, half submerged in a creek, caressed by ancient waters toughened by ancient stones
My soul is in a brand new a stadium, cheering on some logo with 80,000 strangers
My soul is the color of calloused feet and broken promises
My soul is the gorilla beating his chest and in a swing of his fist my soul is a little kid wondering how can he cheapen the family bills
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 1:44 AM UTC
the farmers, hard, winter toughened
Minnesota plains, quiet men
have been spreading manure
the wet fields sink the
green or yellow tractor
wheels into the muck
that the melted snow
has given to us once again,
stuck almost above the rims
(maybe that is why they paint
them such a bright yellow)
but these men press on
as though maybe denial, hard
work and quiet lives could let
them, too, walk on water
against this last assault
of winter, these men
work to renew the life
of the fields with compost
every spring, like tulips
pressing up through the
frozen slush, reaching for
the promise of warmer days,
too early, once more, asking,
has this gift been received
with thankfulness?
Mar 23, 2012
Mar 23, 2012 at 10:49 AM UTC
The rain
slops upon
the concrete,
washing.
It washes
away what we
cannot see
and sloshes
the ground
in merriment.
I hear it
drench
the toughened
soul and
soften the
pine.
The drumming
hum of rain
on the sill
sends
slumber
to even
the restless.
And the soft
lustre
after a fall
in which
the world
sparkles,
causes
even the hardest
hearts to glow
gold.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 3:16 PM UTC
M-irthful disposition radiates when you have gotten to befriend her soul. She's
A-rticulate in speaking her mind and adamant in her principles yet keeps her motherly affection--a
R-arity in these difficult times of shepherding. She's
I-ndependently strong, toughened by storms that may have crushed her heart but never her soul.
L-ove reigns in her big heart as she sings you her songs and lays kisses on PL's cheeks.
Y-ou'll want to replay her infectious laughs-a music to the ears,
N-icely reminding you of her presence in cups of coffee with peers.
Dec 23, 2020
Dec 23, 2020 at 4:27 PM UTC
)
~
(
~
It comes anytime,
like a blowing breeze,
tenderly caressing,
but.....invading;
it creeps in, and
softens the toughened,
this breeze of fragility
makes ****** tissues
indispensable.
some days,
a *playful little girl
steers a paper boat
on a big basin of water,*
plays with dogs...watching
spiders weaving webs, perching
birds and butterflies, pretending
they are dwarf friends...while
munching a red, crisp apple, like
snow white.....playful, sleepy,
and.....forgiving.
on an undaunted mood,
wonder woman determinedly
crosses her gauntlet-wrapped
forearms...to protect loved ones
and in so doing, makes possible
the impossible,
come hell or high water
some days, a blend of all three
occurs, but, the child and the brave,
try to rule over the fragile...me,
every day.....is an adventure...
Sally
©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
August 26, 2020
Sep 7, 2020
Sep 7, 2020 at 9:49 PM UTC
Tomorrow will be the day,
not today,
happy pitty,
but tomorrow...
Worromot,
things turning upside down,
or inside out I should say.
Inside out, what an appropriate expression.
Tomorrow will be today sometime tomorrow,
and then
I'll be inside out,
I'll be out, my inside will be out,
exposed to the world for them to throw stones at it,
or my dad rather than the world.
But my insides have toughened
they will be a worthy adversary,
I will be a worthy adversary,
She will be a worthy adversary.
She...
Soon.
Worromot.
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 12:52 PM UTC
I found my fate below my feet.
So I continue to tread gently.
Sobering up from the intoxication of seeking.
My light has never been lost and need not to be sought.
I’m breaking the walls I built to cover the real me.
Coated with anxiously raised endurance and strengths.
All the layers of fallacy.
My true nature has always been fragile.
Yet I’m toughened by life’s impermanence.
Holding on to the very meaning of life.
Embracing all sufferings and hardships.
Without losing sight of my creative and truer self.
Jun 19, 2022
Jun 19, 2022 at 2:37 AM UTC
Beating hearts lay beneath,
where souls, dead, from love awaits.
Armour as toughened emotions,
chained and beaten.
Yet, hope, holds quietness of mind.
Waning torment and time.
Eventually comes peace.
Strength resolved.
Pivotal.
Resolved strength.
Peace comes eventually,
time and torment waning.
Mind of quietness, holds hope yet.
Beaten and chained emotions,
toughened as amour, awaits love.
From dead souls,where
beneath, lay hearts beating.
Jun 28, 2010
Jun 28, 2010 at 9:01 PM UTC
\|\||//|\\\\||////
I see young reeds on the marshy water
......with flexible stalks...softer...smaller
forcefully swayed by the ones taller...older
...squeezed in between
...no choice given
.....but to exist within
there are those that bravely stray
...even before the stiff ones get blown away,
.....out of the reedy confines, they peek
......curiosity and freedom...they seek
i watch these young reeds rise and totter
when the wind moves the shallow water
bravely peeping...finding their light,
...claiming their space....with traces of fright
.................learning to fight
...with every fiber of their might.
...they can't go farther
................than yonder
in restrictions, they'll find some wisdom
eventually, they'll discover true freedom
one day...their blades would be more defined,
toughened, honed by rain, sun, wind and time,
in their minds, my words would have to rhyme...
but, until then...i got to be taller
......sharper.....tougher
...flexible, but dauntless
i have to sway 360 degrees,
.......when the need arises....
Sally
Copyright July 12, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 12:55 AM UTC
(When The Rains Come)
Our house stands on a valley
early summer evenings find people strolling
specially when the sky is arrayed with countless stars,
and a full moon cooperates with a glow
Who wouldn't want a rain-less evening?
no rush...walking easy on a Friday or Saturday night
finding ways to unwind....glasses tingle in toasting
conversation and laughter fill the air...
In parts of the valley shielded by bridges and walls
there live the troubled, homeless souls
they, too, want to breathe the evening air
they leave their improvised homes
find dark spaces, where they turn bolder
some toughened...almost numbed
their litanies, held within
their eyes, beyond shedding tears
their faces stained with sadness and frustration
due to failed expectations
Around these dark spaces
are where callous eyes meet wary looks
where angels mingle with demons
where, most times, indifference wins
against compassion.
Twice,
i met the dauntless, black eyes of an old woman
i almost dropped mine, to avoid the stare
but she tapped my elbow...i looked up again.
Both of my shoulders would not suffice
to ease the burden this old woman carried
how do we deal with a problem that always starts but doesn't end?
how? when most turn their faces, their backs, their thoughts away,
because, there's nothing spectacular to see, or be expected
just more unpleasant things to come up.
The rains have finally come...our valley
most often, turns into a gully
where it seems to be raining forever.
i think of the old woman with black eyes
if she's still around, could she be hungry? wet again?
shivering from the cold rain?
where could she be seeking shelter
now that summer
is finally over?
Sally
Copyright May 23, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 2:40 AM UTC
Miles and Miles to go,
that's how far I must treck
through rain, hail, sun, and snow
still yet I have
Miles and Miles to go.
Miles and Miles to go,
where I will stop,
when will I end,
it's not like anybody will know,
when I've yet to travel
Miles and Miles,
Miles to go.
Down this beaten path,
or broken road,
over the hill-tops and mountains,
through yon valleys so deep,
it's the precious little memories of each
of all the people and places
I keep.
Yet I know I'll have more,
with life keeping the better parts in store,
but there's only one way to know for sure,
when I've yet to simply endure,
Miles and Miles To Go.
Trek along, the weary way,
with no place of my own,
not a warm place to stay,
I endure the hardships of the weather,
hoping one day
it'll all be better,
but better land is so far away,
and I've got me mind still sharp and together,
and come the troubles, and come as they may,
I know I'm never alone,
when I travel the road by day.
Miles and Miles to go,
my feet has toughened
harder than boots,
I'm finally going,
the land of my roots.
There's no more place that I'd rather go,
than to the place,
the place I call my home.
To finally feel the warm ground beneath my feet,
to finally feel the comfort,
of the sun's blanketing heat.
To feel the wind as it washes through my hair,
to feel the raindrops on my skin,
like I didn't care.
To smell the dew, in the early morn,
to finally taste, some of that home grown corn.
And yet...
I've a long way to go,
before I finally head home,
still I must travel,
still
I must roam.
For the work is not done,
nor will it ever be,
there's a race to be run,
and I'm not the only one,
with Miles
And Miles
To Go.
Miles And Miles To Go.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 9:53 PM UTC
Every word he utters
Sounds like a mighty roar
And his hands can stir storms
And great gusts of wind.
His eyes are weapons
Piercing through my heart
Scarring me,
Leaving me to be
Never the same ever again.
But behind that fierce facade
And thick skin toughened by time
Is a heart
Gently glowing with the embers of
Hope,
Faith,
And love.
It burns on not only with passion,
But with compassion.
It is a light and a lamp,
A firework and a forest fire.
He has might and bravery,
boldness and tenacity, but
In his power
He has purpose,
And in his leadership he extended
Love.
Look up and
See him soar high in the sky,
For he has written his name
In the book of the legendary.
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 3:25 AM UTC
Young child with your doughnut smile,
Your cockiness and native guile,
Here's some stuff with an 'S' to look out for
A smallish list to even the score,
In what you'll know is an unfair life:
Sufficient knowledge of Machiavellian strife,
Scissored words to cut the crap,
String and sticks to lay your traps,
Shell to listen to when adults blare,
Stone to polish whilst they glare,
Sleekly concealed hiding places,
Several artless piteous faces,
Sack to carry your thievings well,
Starched hankie for its awesome smell,
Salve to nurse your nascent pride,
Style enough to say "I lied",
Sharp pin in shoe-toe to kick any creeps,
Soles of rubber for super-huge leaps,
Some allies of similarly toughened mien,
Strong butter-toffees to keep the allies keen,
Stories of your devious plans to pass the time...
Since i'm tired now of trying to rhyme
This is where i leave you, small human being
Find the **** things and smash the adult fiends,
And when you're done, just wait for me
Next time we'll look at things with a 'T'.
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 7:02 AM UTC
I slash open
the fine lines
of my veins
to let in the
starry breath
of night
fresh and fiery
as a snap of chaos
left out
in the firmament
to chill,
the frigid air
weaving an
icy filigree
upon the black
cooling my blood
soothing the
night creatures
that swerve and sway
beneath my skin
restless as tiny demons
always locked away,
within
They emerge from
their hibernation
into the gelid
crackle of air,
zipping over the
sheens of ice floes
unstopped by sudden
change in climate
frozen moss between
their claws, their toes
In this icicle-dipped
troposphere
a burning
descends upon
my tastebuds
just as if
you have
kissed me
the ebbs
of time seemingly
bringing you closer
an energetic wrapping
up and through
my being
like the breathiest of
polar mist
and as I gaze up
at the tiny
wisps of light,
lustrous as the
full moon scattered,
the astral plane
whirrs deep within me
stirring up my womb
ploughing the fields
of my mind
creating riverflow
from icy drought
soothing the
cuts and fissures
and rocky edges
of my aching
prophetess
heart
Fragile yet callused,
toughened with time
as it beats
beneath the ice
soft as the inside of
a wounded animal
blessed by its hunters
for making itself a gift
to the tribe
apparently
your warrior's
palm alone
can melt it
down
and sometimes,
as I get
lost inside deeply
wild tundras,
suddenly
I'm
found
Nov 21, 2016
Nov 21, 2016 at 6:54 AM UTC