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Posts for June 26, 2022 (page 8)

PBSartist
Category
Poem
2
6/26/22

making peace

what are you doing he asked
trying to surrender I said
no you’re not you’re trying to figure it out.
solutions do not appear so much as show up
there is no value in the crease between the brow
we’ve been told there is gold ruched in actions and taking
society prescribed medicine and what
not
there is no fine line to walk between doing/being waiting/acting
there is simply keeping
on surrender
is a myth worn thin by modern usage
density turned transparent
we’ve let so much of the value of natural transaction laying dormant
the sun reaching down pulling you from the mud

H.A.
Category
Poem
4
6/26/22

New

Swinging hammers

clanging crowbars
popping nails
splitting wood
 
Bend at the knees
grip weathered boards
carry overhead
walk the long path to discard debris curbside
 
Dismantling this eyesore piece by piece
feels tedious
seems impossible
is exhausting in the blazing summer heat
until I sit beneath the oak tree’s shadow and observe:
 
A skeletal frame remains 
healthier than anticipated
the old surface deceived us all
(appearances will do that)

Heavy hauling is complete

look on at what was undone
dream of tomorrow’s build:
Buzzing saws
fresh cut wood
cedar scented air
shiny fasteners
brand new board– secure
brand new board– secure
brand new board– secure
on repeat for hours
Stopping at nothing to manifest this vision
requires time
prefers planning
hides unanticipated frustrations
summons patience 
conjurs visions of what could be 

new.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Coleman Davis
Category
Poem
10
6/26/22

Calliope Rising

 
 
Now don’t read me wrong.
For Mnemosyne’s gift I will
make grateful poems, always.
With that, here’s to these old songs
 
of wet mud and nail. Sunlight
through clear stone, ray’s
castings reverently traced and copied.
 
Sharpened bone’s patient etch
over and over into hard stone.
Coal and root crushed and laid
on wood, skin and walls throughout 
 
this long drive of language. 
The hunt to fill our desire that
we remember ourselves with tools.
 
However, there is an older script.
Heat wrinkles twist the sky, dance
in air then are erased and left.
Lost in the cracked jaws of the past.
 
I saw that first calligraphy above
slow swirls of smooth lava. Again
here rising from hard clay, another.
 
Now it’s too hot to split wood.
Trilliums bow their heavy seed
heads in prayer. I see that clean
familiar writing through a shimmer.
 
My old dear friend shifts, lifts
turns and points straight at me.
Smile intact singing his new name.
 
I know that finally – yes – this is home.
 
 
 
 
Manny Grimaldi
Category
Poem
12
6/26/22

Prometheus

Nowadays sound is percussive, mechanical, and metallic. It’s in the clack of computer keys

and the throb of 80’s synths. The Iron Bird lifts on air squealing.  At every glance 

a Swiss watch wound to tick tells us we are out of time.  We drive nails into wood, 

and chains tie prisoners to weeping stone walls. My garden is soft in the middle.

I feel ill leaving it behind, the goldenseal and mushrooms for market,

wind lifting the leaves by the retaining wall.  Bubbles, gurgles beyond

unguarded imagination by-God-this-is-a-virgin-landscape-that-grows! All is good! 

All is green! Yes, I want to bring us here where we can sleep my Captain.

Sweet and sleepy in your Great Soul, you make all.  The clang, the clatter, the blows.

There is a cemetery for long purples and dead man’s fingers clutching their steering wheels,

my Captain. My Captain, I hear the song and I have to hear you say you want it like before.

Take me, drown me in soft river clay to fashion me from vegetable into mechanism,

You are a modern Prometheus, I will dance for you. Bound, and wound, to dance, your doll.

 

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