"untrammeled" poems
*everyday chores
wake
eye-crusted
weep
hoping
to free-falling freedom
maybe
splash
words of encouragement
let them
dry
*untowled and untrammeled
upon expressionless lips*
routinize
squeeze
*out the poem
reforming repeatedly*
write
of everyday chores
sleep
go to, to go,
*half awarding awaring
that newbie tears new pooling
will by morn
old crusting creating
and
everyday chores
never ending
I am earth
crusted
no matter how deep
daily*
dug
the untitled
everyday chores
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 8:07 AM UTC
Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
Nor ever with a conquering air
You thought to draw me unaware—
Take me, for I love you more
Than I ever loved before.
And since the body’s maidenhood
Alone were neither rare nor good
Unless with it I gave to you
A spirit still untrammeled, too,
Take my dreams and take my mind
That were masterless as wind;
And “Master!” I shall say to you
Since you never asked me to.
1.9k
They took them…
With a *** shovel and beards engulfed with disguise,
By fire, by force and harm
They heartlessly took them…
Loading with a military van from the snare, the school
Sabotaging their education and jubilance
At the brink of our oculus, like a hot blade through margarine,
Like the evanescence of dew upon new dawn,
They were gone…
We cajole to Haram Islamic militants,
Not the slavery we signed up for,
Yet this is our story, but not our destiny.
It is profane and sacrilegious to talk slavery upon our realms.
Our ancestral dormancy and Jesus crucifixion outlines our history.
We were untrammeled...but today,
Our existence is dreary and clouded by mystery
We count minutes turning into tormented hours,
In lament of our own flesh and blood
They took them..
with needles and stylus they pinched poked and taunted us,
Like a bunch of sponges filled with voids,
Our hearts are painfully porous,
Dope them with defects,
Bring back our girls…
Haram saboteurs came in with a saber,
They took them…
How less of a man to not respect the words of the late Tata Madiba,
When he said"Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land
Will again experience the oppression of one by another".
There will be war upon the element of Haram when Jesus intervene..
Bring back our girls..
(Nigreian acsent)
Chinekeee, man of Haram, bring back our girls_oo
I beg, why go they take?
Eeeh, god will go get you one day,
With our teary Nigerian eyes, will we ever see?
Adedagbo, our crown of joy ?
Aduke, our beloved ?
Afolayan Walking in majesty...
Agbogu, God settles dispute…
Bring back our girls.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 1:28 AM UTC
.
Her hair rushes like rain
As my eyes turn to stone,
Her beauty, it has no fame,
Like Brando is one great poet,
And Shakespeare, so underrated,
Her lips are like undiscovered flowers,
Opening into a mythic forest untrammeled,
Like footsteps reeling after light from beyond,
Her voice babbles as water caressing mute stones.
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 8:47 PM UTC
I want a day with a morning mist
that burns off
as the sun finds its way
through the thin trunks of Loblolly pines
along the river.
I want to *****
over logs and through bogs
and find my way around the bend
among whatever crawls, digs and hunts
along the river.
I want to feel like the first person
to sink my heels into untrammeled riverbank
and discover what raccoon and ****** know;
there is promise here
along the river.
I want to blaze a ****** path
and hear cracks, snaps, and squishes play a song
with each step of my boot
along the river.
I want to see what is
beyond the bend
along the river.
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
i.
Such is their reward, then,
This graceful bridge bisecting the lake at Bemus Point,
Not far from the spot where Bishop Vincent
Parsed the geography of the holy land,
Narrow beaches fronting a higgledy-piggledy of cottages,
Most comfortable but staid,
Though the odd McMansion grotesquerie
Has sprouted here and there,
Courtesy of some frozen-food magnate in Buffalo
Or casino second-in-command from Niagara Falls
(Those more famous waters, apparently,
Insufficient to slake ones thirst for the gaudy)
In any case, likely no more than admired from afar
By those generations of boys
Who, leaving their spot on the line at Crescent Tools
Or fields rife with bumble-striped heifers,
Never returned, drill press unmanned, corn crib unattended.
ii.
You’d been on those waters once, however,
Spending an afternoon both bewitching and idyllic
On a dock fronting a relatively humble beach bungalow
(A friend of a family friend or relative’s place,
The whos and whys lost to the manila folders of recollection)
With a girl of ten, perhaps twelve at the outside,
Beautiful in an untrammeled manner,
Or at least primarily, unconsciously so,
And you remember her having green eyes
Which utterly belied description
(Though that was all long ago,
Such reminiscence likely no more than the rheuminess of memory,
And you have not returned to that shoreline since.)
iii.
Such daydreams are perilous, on many levels,
At seventy miles per hour even more so,
And you shake yourself back to the present
While approaching yet another bridge
(Humble span noting humble beginnings)
Honoring the region’s most famous daughter and her husband,
Who did indeed have much ‘splaining to do,
As you proceed eastbound toward Salamanca
(Wholly owned by the Seneca Nation,
Those non-native descendants of Mertzes and McGillicuddys
Paying rent and fealty to the tribe each year)
And thence to the slump-shouldered hills
Which shelter the sauntering Allegheny,
The pines thick, green, inscrutable,
Beyond our everday squabbles,
Answerable to nothing but time itself.
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 12:26 PM UTC
What is a life but a second with you
in a room with no furniture but our
bed. We shed our clothes as though
they are our past and I lift you gently
onto white linen sheets. I shudder
with excitement as I slide beside
you, your golden hair a trail from
your naked hips to your turgid *******
pink as cherry blossoms, ***** as
Spring’s harbinger, white crocuses
sprouting by a winter’s stream. I
dream of you even as I’m with you,
stroking your gracious, lissome arm.
I give your neck a kiss. I wish not
to miss any part of you. I am on
a journey of love and your body
beautiful is my destination. Though
I have traveled this path before,
every movement of the palm of
my hand feels anew. I caress
your tender ******* that elicits
moans like voices of heaven’s
angels that give wing through
our gift-giving of ****** sharings.
Now it is time to touch your soul,
the epicenter of your being. I am
seeing again the provenance of
your goodness and greatness
that complement your pulchritude.
I am blessed by your spirit. We
are untrammeled when the two
of us make unending love.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
Feb 20, 2020
Feb 20, 2020 at 4:21 AM UTC
There is an endless field of flowers
a sky untrammeled above
sweet gasps of warmth
lifting my hair to the sun
a tickle of coolnness beneath
the quiet space where I wait
Apr 24, 2010
Apr 24, 2010 at 9:17 AM UTC
I sense that,
I have a great deal to give:
my eyes, my lips, my body,
it is all there is for you to consume,
I want your arms with me,
the stars along the hills,
how dreamily I fog my gaze somewhere else,
just to listen to you talking,
desiring to hold you,
and this eagerness,
to come live where you are,
to ascend,
the unconditional movements of my heart,
flowing in your body,
like a dear fire in an open space,
like grains of sand kissing your skin,
like a flower sitting on your ears,
like a song taming your lips,
ah, just to nestle myself with you,
and into my naked hands,
I bring you the transparent serenity,
the blue sky in its untrammeled thought.
Apr 21, 2021
Apr 21, 2021 at 6:16 AM UTC
"The world is WIDE and I travel it!
The world has a secret and I SEEK it!”,
Said I, as I sailed off one day
To follow tales of distant shores,
With untrammeled frontiers,
****** and pure!
Yielding to the demand of my disquieted soul,
“Voyage!” she cried, and I set upon my goal:
To stretch forth the extremities of my
Ambition -- to penetrate
The veil of all unknowing;
To heed to the heady lure
Of discovery,
Carried by the west wind, blowing!
The path I run will cost me years, and
I must try to go the distance.
But this is a longing for life undiluted,
Quaffed deep and savored
As a Barolo vintage,
Noble and intense.
Maps of her forbidding hinterlands were
Vouchsafed by Mariner Kings of ancient days.
I consulted the coded charts for clues, and
Configured the gilded astrolabe.
Obsession ruled my motives as I
Poured over sea-faring strategies.
The sagacious scrolls became a cypher,
Whispering exotic rumors
Of pleasures and possessions,
Steeped in rich antiquities.
My fertile mind was seized
By these boundless visions,
As the time came for our enterprise.
I shouted to my stalwart company,
“The road forward will not be forgiving,
But the rewards gained will outrageous fortune comprise!”
Our quest divided the latitudes as a
Scimitar separates flesh from bone.
My ship slashed the longitudes as we
Sought passage far from home.
My desire encircled her sensuous shape,
For she is a mistress, supple and warm.
This journey provided the means of escape, for
From the Tome of Glory these pages were torn!
Hence, joyously exulting, I made clear my claim,
“Wisdom is a treasure divine!
Adventure is the blood inflamed!”
My mad dream was unleashed and
I will always remember the day.
I was free to sail my heart’s tidal-course,
Venturing forth, far and away!
Aug 6, 2017
Aug 6, 2017 at 12:43 PM UTC
it was too early to let go,
but was the sky—a hodgepodge of red, orange, and blue—
weeping for our permanent parting?
we were drowned in a swathe of starlight black
as if the moonlight cloaked us with invisible fabric?
we were there, i knew, but even my loudest shouts
was no match for your indifference.
our eyes, untrammeled even by the tempestuous winds,
gazing like rapiers through skin,
only vacillated by my innermost deluge.
in the nightfall, i see you outshining the sun,
but what am i then, a rock, a moon in the morning sky?
your gaze, resolute and unfaltering,
like a soldier facing a barrage of mercenaries.
i reach for you in my haze of thoughts,
only to be impeded by my wistful diffidence.
the mere thought of you electrify me—
a robot begging for every inch of shock.
you are my ardor through which my soul is replete,
a sharp pang as i wake up from my nocturnal reverie.
i am a monolith weathered by the voyage of time,
and in my days, crumble into specks of dust.
i'll get to you soon, however far it may be—
the earth, the sun—just as you breathe me in,
and only then will i truly leave.
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 10:29 AM UTC
first a blizzard of embarrassment
i went to a party in my guitar student’s apartment
she planned to debut her new guitar-picking
which was cool, friends make a sympathetic audience
what i didn’t know and she didn’t know
was that these were not her friends
it wasn’t her party, it was her roommates’ party
and when she turned down the hip-hop and started singing peter paul & mary
the guests were WHAT THE ****
normally i could roll with this but i’d just smoked a blizzard of ****
and was stupefied through the cornball song and hostile reaction
she wouldn’t stop leaving on a jet plane
and her stiff strumming was like a bucket of glue poured on me
who’d been introduced to the party as her brilliant guitar teacher
so much for recruiting new students at $20 a lesson
i was further stupefied by a coven of new arrivals
outside it was snowing, a blizzard, but these four girls were in halter tops
i was lost in a broad panorama, ******* all around
stunning pot-smoking showcase **** taking huge breaths
i toked just to hang out, which painted me especially purple
after a happy half hour i realized, being a married man
it wasn’t time to make friends, it was time to go
so i exited the party and dug out my car
the snow was smooth, untrammeled
i turned on the radio, the grateful dead—
PERFECT
i ignited my sled and slid out, streets clear thanks to the blizzard
but half a block from the house i picked up a police car
following 15 feet behind me all the way across town
i was drunk, ****** & stupefied
and we were alone in the city, no distractions
the blizzard was wicked, the snow as intense as a plague
that’s how we rolled, and it felt like the cops tailed me
all the way down from the arctic circle
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 8:09 AM UTC
Listen, now my friends, for I
shall let, the thought that like
an illness threads, laced through
all the causeways of my veins,
that in the moment, threatening
decay, boils, and begs relief;
that all men, and women living,
made in the plan of this wide
and tangled tapestry, seek and
humor themselves to be, each
woven separate, unique in form
and station, and about them hung
the universe, dependent for its
character on their sight, which
itself by their hearts temperament is due.
Life, the lives of others, serve the
merest backdrop, the stage that
is the foundation of our act, and
our struggles, illumined by
measure of their intimacy, seem
in their importance to swallow the
world, and cast all that does not
pertain in a veil of contempt, disinterest.
Yet the world, as in untrammeled
thought we realize, does not sway
according to ourselves, move
whether sweet or bitter, along the
course of our presumption. But in its
step it moves to the tune of its creation;
wholly nothing, never fair nor foul alone;
a pool, in which like ripples man's every
thought and action begins, grows, dies,
and is reborn. Seen now, free of leaning
and imprint, the brush's work broad,
shallow, a truth is opened, that wiser now
perforce we clutch to our ******* that of
the living, who suffer, there are those
who suffer more, or less than ourselves,
and to the former in the halls of memory we
can do naught but weep, so shut our eyes
and turn, pretending the point less sharp,
the dose less bitter, that our minds may fall
again to the pattern, and our eyes again look
outward. Walled so, is it a wonder that these lives,
these men and women, shaped as they are through
pain are found forgot, abandoned in the memory
of their minds, their hearts? But memory is the
root of empathy, sympathy; so remember, and in
whoso you meet light their memory also; for it
is only when record fails that man's erasure is
complete; nor will ever his life lose its meaning
while there is one alive to remember.
Jan 1, 2020
Jan 1, 2020 at 7:33 PM UTC