"wheelbarrows" poems
This is the machine.
Tucked under necklaces, poppies and daffodils
calligraphic fingertip Xs
hurry across pockets.
Thursday morning job postings
markers on construction paper windows
exhausted by making parts.
Keep weddings in thunderstorms
to hide the sound of windmills in chests,
bittersweet directions to ticking clockwork.
Carbonated water can’t convince summer to stay,
musical breaths and tulip footsteps
remind me of the gears in my knees.
Always buy wallets used
daylily bank notes folded into stairwells,
the heels of my socks.
Blue collars in ochre wheelbarrows
soaking next to the white ones.
We are quiet machines.
With cogs in our wrists
battery powered bone and sinew.
Baby’s breath white in our hair,
tiny bunches piled into collar bones or concave stomachs.
You have stars in your hair
whispering in manufactured voices
to pull out your eyelashes.
Consumed by the concept of concepts
on ravine park benches,
marred with newspaper labyrinths
smelling of rolled up sleeves.
Hand held gummy bears
prompt me to check my fluid levels,
bubbly orchids in my left palm.
Sugar intakes and patterned pants
hide homemade pulses.
This is the machine.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
For every sad song on the radio
I hope you think about me,
For every time you said you cared
I hope you’re doused in gasoline!
I hope bugs always clutter your windshield,
I hope the brakes on your stupid car stick,
I hope it’s dark and raining wheelbarrows
And you drive headfirst into the ditch!
I hope the doctors forget anesthesia,
I hope the scalpel slips,
I hope the surgeon’s hands are sloppy
And he cuts something you need to live!
Because I hate you
Like a crayon too short to sharpen
So you have to buy a whole new pack,
Yeah, I hate you
Like that pair of **** jeans
You can’t fit in because you’re too fat,
Oh I hate you
More than yogurt or stale banana bread,
I hate you like only a lover can.
One of your hipster smoker friends
Can put a cigarette out on your tongue,
I hope the ashes collect in your mouth,
The taste of kisses, regret, and poison!
I hope your family disowns you,
I hope your plants all wither and die,
May the road you walk crumble to pieces
Or at least be uphill on both sides!
I hope none of your children turn out to be yours
Because your best friend is better in bed,
And if your honeymoon is with anyone else,
I hope your plane crashes into the Caribbean!
Because I hate you
Like a crayon too short to sharpen
So you have to buy a whole new pack,
Yeah, I hate you
Like that pair of **** jeans
You can’t fit in because you’re too fat,
Oh I hate you
More than sleeping in a hot room with no fan,
I hate you like only a lover can.
Aug 22, 2010
Aug 22, 2010 at 7:44 PM UTC
A great and sprawling land, China.
I flew halfway 'round the globe
To find a vast conundrum:
Cities burgeoning,
Young and old
Spires of glass
Pillars of steel,
Empty or filled,
Roads new and old:
New Bentleys and Buicks,
Two cylindered trucks,
Three-wheeled taxis,
Bell ringing bicycles,
Wheelbarrows laden,
Grandmothers pushing carriages,
A million mopeds...
And everyone busy.
Ships at Qingdao,
Lovers on the boardwalks,
Blue-green glass touching the sky,
Reflecting the ocean.
Sidewalk musicians
Strum Chinese songs
'Neath kite-filled skies
Beside the spiraled Winds of Change.
Beijing, capitol and dragon-city,
Towers beside the ancient Wall,
Hosts the world,
Puts on her civil face,
Bows greetings to the fawning planet,
Eager to earn industrial favors.
She shrouds herself in smog,
Hides her slithering tail
Snaking world-ward over distant mountains.
---------------------------
Uneven is the change;
Wealth beyond imagination
Fuels the work of towering cranes
Pivoting above a poorer crowd's starvation...
A jet set crowd whose growing never wanes...
Economic challenge of the oldest of all nations.
Published today 14.12
Dec 30, 2013
Dec 30, 2013 at 3:51 PM UTC
I heard poet's have to
be the world's observers
So here I am
Trying to be a good poet
Observing things.
I walk
Through the park
Picturing the poetry
of my surroundings
The day is whatever
Flowers, Bees, Wheelbarrows
Sure, that's all fine
I will leave it for others
to express with their words
I keep walking
I see a man
mowing the grass
Humbly dressed in an
Orange vest
wiping off his life dreams
with the sleeves of his shirt
Grass sticks to his forehead
I keep walking
An older man
but not old
sits alone at a park bench
His face is buried
into the infinite
comforting darkness
of his hands
Tears break free from the cracks
I keep walking
I see a woman
She is not with me
She is happy
I keep walking
I see a kid
playing baseball
He looks sharply at his parents
every second
Dad is on his cell phone
Mom sleeps on her lit cigarette in the minivan
At least they showed up
I keep walking
Down by the lake
I see my reflection
I see myself
Aged
Scared
Alone
A good poet observes things
The reflection is in my bathroom mirror
There was no park
I didn't actually observe these things
I lay flat on my back
My skin sweats against the tile
I grasp the empty
Orange bottle
close to my chest
I try to observe more things
before it's too late
So I can be a good poet
So I can be remembered
I observe the flickering lightbulb that
I should have changed
I observe the towels that
she hated
and don't match the shower curtain
I observe my cold sweat
mixing with the warmth of my tears
A good poet observes things
The light bulb burns out
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 3:12 AM UTC
her thoughts were old wheelbarrows
too full and broken down
from over use and old abuse
which wrinkled up her frown
yet they wheeled around in circles
and made her temples burn
she closed her eyes and her weary mind
lay cold and overturned
Apr 1, 2012
Apr 1, 2012 at 9:37 PM UTC
Those days when you just can’t wait to go to bed.
Not to slump down onto it in yielding surrender
or fall into it in tears, face first and meat red,
but to gently pull back the pillowy quilt
and the sheets, with tiny blue flowers,
flannelette, like a fresh work shirt,
so that when you slide in carefully
and make your cave in the sheets
the hug is work-arm strong
and reminds you of soil
and wheelbarrows
and gardening
and building
in the sun
as it sets…
and rises…
open eyes
still hugged,
you stand lightly
then soft pad to warm,
dark, sweet, pitch-bitter
coffee, and lifting the mug,
you pause before the first sip
of bliss, flooding deep in waking
flavours from magic beans grown
in ancient Ethiopian forests, noticed
by folk when curious goats turned zestful,
becoming a helper for evening prayer, to allow
hard work and intentional presence to earn well
your tiredness, so that you just can’t wait to go to bed…
Nov 6, 2024
Nov 6, 2024 at 10:44 PM UTC
My heart is a burning city
Held up by pillars of salt
No one's sure how it started
A cigarette astray?
Catherine O'Leary's heartbreak?
Job lives in a house on the hill
On the teetering outskirt of town
He visits twice a week
And carries a purple umbrella for the ashes
Can pity turn into love?
Can saying it make it real?
Are we doomed to dream of a lucid skyline stained orange?
Slaving over carting wheelbarrows full of gristle
Of the burning tower I used to be
My silhouette on the horizon
Is the hunchback of New England
Dec 10, 2011
Dec 10, 2011 at 1:30 AM UTC
We fell all the time.
It was a matter of balance.
Our inner ears and eyes
Struggled with gravity; and
Being upright is our gravest concern.
So, we always stood again,
Revolving around equilibriums:
Bikes, ledges and feet;
Everything was a test. Everything needed balance:
Wheelbarrows, roof peaks and checking accounts.
I've learned balance for adults
Is even more precarious.
Our words are heavily weighted,
And some more disproportionately than others,
With see-saw issues and teeter-totter opinions.
Isn't it easier to get back on the bike
Than walk back unbalanced arguments.
May 17, 2021
May 17, 2021 at 11:32 AM UTC
Pushing wheelbarrows through tall grass
hoping it will mow the lawn
it only carries old dirt
over new problems
Occasionally spilling manure over the lip to make new weeds grow faster.
Never believed in lawn mowers.
Said that cutting the heads off all this grass would risk cutting the heads off the flowers too
Most people say **** the flowers
But not you
Your garden is extravagant.
Jun 29, 2016
Jun 29, 2016 at 11:56 AM UTC
I've written a thousand words that have trailed behind me for decades.
If I attempted to turn around and pick them all up as if I'm collecting shells from a beachside, it would be wheelbarrows full.
Write.
Just write Natasha.
Quit attempting to perfect this gift and just let it unravel.
Don't criticize, judge or feel
Guilt over your need to shut away and bleed the thoughts that you're unable to speak onto paper.
Release the fear that captivates you. It's that uneasiness in knowing the pain that spills once I form these words into being readable and they sink into my heart and become truth.
Truth equals pain for me.
It's the fear that this truth might just **** me.
Is it possible to die of a broken heart, I often ask myself.
Battling this fear to write this novel is the one thing holding me back from healing.
Allowing my entire being to sink into it, and rage against the words as if I'm the flat of the ocean being ravished by the never ending waves.
Tossed and turned by the emotions that come with the process that forces you to heal.
It's the still, that resides between each word written, that quiet space that leaves me restless.
Calm the infuriation, unclench your teeth and let the words be written into reality.
My need to burst into a blood pumping release that lightens my heart from this heaviness is enough to shake the floor of the ocean.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 3:08 PM UTC
DR. Congo
I saw the villa Joseph Kabila bought in Algarve it is to be a bolt hole
when he has to flee Congo, he has blood on his hands perhaps not
enough for Hague to bother about, like so many African presidents,
he has robbed his country to destitution.
Perhaps this echoing country, with forests is too big to be governed
especially since no money is spent on new roads; Kinshasa its capital is
run mostly by mixed races, not even they can keep order and people
throw all their ******* in the street.
Joseph Kabila, Joseph's father, tried ordered a thousand wheelbarrows
gave a job to ditto street cleaners who sold their wheelbarrows and
consequently lost their jobs. But these setbacks are not the problem
Congo is too rich in minerals, oil and timber and the big international
businesses have descended upon the land corrupting all in its wake like
a locust plague they have failed to get rid of and they have no interest
in making Congo a nation which, it will be when it is a more modern.
I looked inside the villa it had cavernous rooms gold and glitter quite
fitting for someone who doesn't know the value of anything but gems
and never mind the culture
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 4:07 AM UTC
Let me try again
Try to explain
Just how I feel for you
In sickness and in pain
In wellness and in health
With fat or with a belt
Being sound, an able mind
or just too crazy to unwind
But, this thing happens every time
I look at you and hear this chime
It's like a carnival with all the rides
And cotton candy stacked so high
The colored lights and happy faces
When your presence gives me graces
Cartwheels and somersaults
And big pink bunnies that you win
It's like a wheelie over wheelbarrows
That I never want to end
A tumble-set 'til summer sets
Then somersets again
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 9:22 AM UTC
i lost myself
in fields of blue daisies
cherry blossoms falling from the sky
they knew not of themselves or me
but they continued to be
blue
i cried
for they would never know of
their existential beauty
they cried 'cause i'd never know of
mine
i found myself in a field of gardenias
yesterday evening
the petals spun 'round each other while
i spun around the thoughts in my mind
after 'while
we became one
me and the thoughts
the flowers and i
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 11:57 AM UTC
So much
depends upon
a 1997 Saturn
firing up
when I turn
the key.
- mce
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
On having a secret mother
the boy is lacing up his right shoe
when he sees
the string
tied
to his middle
finger
and wonders
how asleep he was
when it happened-
(being forgotten
is a lot like
being forgotten
by) harm, that purple balloon
lowered into
then surrounded
by
the inactive
construction site
of the world
On my father being gay
so you know
what it is
you have
(felt,
there is)
an emoticon
at the end
of this
book
On suicide
you are further than I
in your worship
of the slow
vehicle
that carries
praise
back and forth
from appearing
to reappearing
god (how else)
to bully
what would
wipe you
clean
of body
language…
On foreclosure
any chance, no,
of improving
upon
my impression
of god.
noises beneath a bomb or bomb
threat.
wheelbarrows, wagons.
the occasional declawed cat
past which
I make
like I am
rowing.
(in wheelbarrow) (in wagon) otherwise,
no cats
on cat
island.
On libido
the previous verse was a poor man’s bible. like wildfire a fondness for appropriate discipline spreads. one scarecrow means practice, two scarecrows mean parentage. a third is your father’s failed garden of baby teeth. is, by definition, is. I are
motherless. what mother doesn’t know doesn’t worry. many spiders came on the wind and a few were swept into mouths briefly opened by age. what made woman did not make the disappearing girl. flashing back to a scene that’s not there or forward to one dependent on space, pain arrives
in memoriam.
On memory
for all the showing, one would think the only things born were eyes.
when lord
says
or lords
say
this is the body
I tend
in unison
to trail
behind
my voice
as if
I could make my own
remember the anesthesia
it underwent
to intervene.
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
There is time
always
to take a walk, to see the beautiful things.
Store fronts in the spring time
wheelbarrows painted pink,
the soil left alone has grown little white flowers.
To be delicate is to be brave
in this world of boots on the ground
marching in the streets of the innocent.
There are so many blessed paths to take,
looping and dodging the chaos.
They are lined with roses and watering cans.
May you contribute to the beauty you find and seek.
Leave it for those who follow.
If so inclined, water the sweet smelling rose,
it will encourage others
to walk.
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 1:01 AM UTC
The quality of the wood on the cupboard.
Old poets, plums and wheelbarrows.
Is the toilet paper on the roll correctly?
up? or under?
We never know why. We aren't allowed to ask.
Just watch and tell me what is.
- no understanding?
- that's impossible.
And everything will fit neatly -
of course we must trim the edges.
But everyone expects that
and we want it tidy.
So the sack full of cheerfulness
can lay there all day.
It won't bring tomorrow any sooner.
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 2:42 AM UTC
To their gardens, they go in silent procession
all the tools of the trade by their sides
their wheelbarrows are full
with such an array of flora
Making our parks pretty
in the middle of our cities
so all can have that nature feel
with a beauty that will make your soul refill
From six in the morning to late at night
they work hard to make your eyes delight
planting with loving care
wonderful pretty plants everywhere
They take pride in their work
working hard planting in soil and dirt
with aching backs at the end of the day
they go home and rest and relax
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Dec 29, 2020
Dec 29, 2020 at 5:32 PM UTC