Best Flinty Poems
And when will the tides turn against confident indifference?!
When will humanity cease
To throw cats against curiosity’s silver coated dagger
Another played out song
Another dramatic lyric
Shifting embellished overtones
With deteriorating tact
They spit posthumous awakenings
As divinity laced smiles, wither under a convoluted moon
Shedding retina waterfalls
Misunderstood
Pretentious anger becomes Aphrodite mediocrity
Wisdom, they never “put out”
Crippled tears
Become self-important struts within olive tinted reckonings
Lambasted butterflies
Stirring hornets’ nest
Uninvited
They dream for better days
While double-knotting gang colored bandanas
On eagle’s achromatic foreheads
Another Woody Woodpecker band-aid pulled from condescending hypocrisies
…
And when will the tides turn against pilot light’s mal-intent?
When will the flinty sheep
Stop wondering how these charring, orange fires began
Forgetting the 115 octane gasoline can
They hold quietly in their hands
©Drake J. Eszes
Categories:
flinty, life, psychological, slam,
Form:
Free verse
More rocks than soil on those flinty hills
Where he tilled the grudging land.
He chopped the sprouts and manned the plow,
With cracked and callused hands.
No stranger to adversity,
Through hard and bitter years
He wet the dusty, stony ground
With a poor man’s sweat and tears.
He was not a man you’d hear complain,
Though hard times dogged his trail.
He faced the foe unflinchingly;
His courage never failed.
He cried unto his unseen Friend,
A Friend who always hears--
To the One who sees and understands
A poor man's sweat and tears.
The legacy he left behind
Was not of wealth or fame.
On history’s golden pages
You will not find his name.
He lived a simple, honest life,
In a world that little cares.
His name was written in the dust
In a poor man's sweat and tears.
No rocks, no sprouts, no callused hands
Where he safely dwells today,
In that everlasting Eden,
Beyond the Milky Way.
Where hope ends in reality
And joy relieves all fears--
A garden where no one is poor--
And no more sweat and tears.
Categories:
flinty, father, life, on work
Form:
A valley of hope stares up
at hills of despair
where shuttered cottages groan
despite the fresh air
Flowers bloom down below
in neat garden beds
bright-colored lilies grow
flinty valley overspread
Categories:
flinty, flower, hope, mountains,
Form:
Rhyme
Bronze tint glints from fractured
surfaces, peppered planes of salted
quartzite, eons old:
attributes peculiar to rock,
to stone, whose strength
no soft tissue could ever know.
No iodine suntan ever quite
approached that shade, nor ivory
smile's glow blinded
as its glassy show:
To this flinty hardness mind
never swoops; no human heart,
though cruel, could ever reach
its crystal cold.
Categories:
flinty, angst, depression, love, sad,
Form:
Free verse
pioneer esprit de corps front tier brisk.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Open arms and clenched raised fists raise
masquerade diametrically opposed to rodomontade sways
spewing threatening sacred constitution
expounding vaunted values déclassé 1968 degreed phase
Wharton alumni now on warpath to raze
via his bull dozing wreaks havoc on coven daze
ruining complex edifice
usurped storied super power craze
thru humiliation, liquidation of dredging bays
* * * * * * * * * * * *
and justification (viewed thru his warped vision)
scotching inalienable rights reducing to rubble bedrock division
with remainder of flinty stones,
and unlovely bones a wasteland fission
absent without a trace any evidence of Halcyon days,
which abomination, decimation, and gangrenous lesion
joie de vivre, when martial law decree deep incision
heil come rolled up (frightfully with egregious decision.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
the venomous, tenebrous, and rancorous white house
Head honcho viz prez) inside checkered hookahs lighting
one end per slow burn as hoary smoke emanates
in shape of Taj Mahal, then harmless as Mickey mouse
he iz well singed, seared, and scalded like a cook grouse
(yet of course still alive) sent to further douse
him into initiation righting tis basic human coup laid louse.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Acid test whereby he will be sold to Vladimir Putin for bunk
her hilled feather bedding rubles on the dollar, where clunk
key interim held up by cadre of well comb pence dunk
key Kong sated marionettes, which will carry fleshy lunk
dirty deeds done dirt cheap of this unmentionable monk
key villainous uber trumpeter, scabrous, recalcitrant querulous punk!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
keep your finger and toes crossed for the next four years
aware that such laughable ruse and superstitious scares
not one impish bot of fate, but more so gives false cheers.
Categories:
flinty, betrayal, dark, heartbroken, house,
Form:
(William Hammer, Thomas Alva Edison's assistant,
has reached the end of his tolerance. His boss is
planning to electrocute an elephant for a publicity
stunt.)
If he goes through with this, the dam has burst.
I'm done with him. Of all the tricks he's pulled,
this is the lowest, cheapest, cruellest. Worst.
Yes, Edison. He can't be serious,
can he? To execute an elephant?
He's out there, grinning like a Barbary ape.
Where two or more newspapermen are gathered,
Alva loses all his self-control.
He'll be there now, perspiring, shouting, lathered,
excited to his flinty, vulgar soul.
I'm William Joseph Hammer. Who are you?
A quarter-century I've spent with him,
but now the scales have fallen from my eyes.
The man's a pirate and a charlatan.
Inventor? Him?
Well, since I'm stranded here
in shabby Coney Island in the rain,
ignored and slighted, spited yet again,
I'll tell you. Edison did not invent
the light bulb - that's what he employed me for.
Besides, I'll name a dozen scientists
who'd made a working lamp some years before.
What is he good at? He's a patent-mill!
He takes out patents like a dentist, teeth
(except that dentists never put their name
on what they've pulled). The man has got no shame.
The team has all the talent, he the grin:
we think the thoughts, and Alva cashes in.
I think he's met his match in Westinghouse.
The so-called war of currents. Who will win?
America will buy one set of goods,
and where this country leads, the others go.
To get his system in American homes,
He'd kill his grandma.
Hence this all-time low.
He's worse than Czolgosz. At the very least,
the latter had nobility, although
misguided. Alva has no other cause
beyond himself. Those motion picture-things
are here for Alva's glory. When the blow
extinguishes that poor beast's life, you'll know
whose self-promoting hand was on the tiller.
Saint Thomas Alva Edison's a killer.
Categories:
flinty,
Form:
Iambic Pentameter
How I wish for that cold and flinty stare
the one that tells you 'I don't care'
to hold another, at arm's length
would seem to need so little strength
But, I am weak and've not the heart
it seems it takes, to show no heart
I've trembled, quaked and even quivered
when the time required that I deliver
a simple no; or not today
a trivial act; a slight delay
Instead I bear this morbid need
to supplicate; to please, to bleed
apologies and explanations
the most sincere substantiations
Do they make the deed seem so less
than these sins that I must now confess?
I've prayed to God to make me feared
not loved, respected, nor revered
Alas, he did not make me ruthless,
I'm cursed to live my life, still toothless
Categories:
flinty, anxiety, imagery,
Form:
Couplet
“There is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.
Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
Mortals put an end to the darkness;
they search out the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
Far from human dwellings they cut a shaft,
In places untouched by human feet;
far from other people they dangle and sway.
The earth, from which food comes,
Is transformed below as by fire;
lapis lazuli comes from its rocks,
and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
No bird of prey knows that hidden path,
no falcon’s eye has seen it.
Proud beasts do not set foot on it,
and no lion prowls there.
People assault the flinty rock with their hands
and lay bare the roots of the mountains.
They tunnel through the rock;
their eyes see all its treasures.
They search the sources of the rivers
and bring hidden things to light.”
Categories:
flinty, age, beauty, bible, birth,
Form:
Pastoral
The tongue's mystery
The heart's backdoor of the laughing stock
In his furtive,serpentine tongue lodges
The tongue straightaway of the highbrow,brainiac
In his beating,locked up heart camouflages
Many a foot does stumble,vacillate and actually fall
Withstand against all the odds,above all
A lapsus does incapacitate and intention reveal
Prompts irreparable mischiefs elusive to heal
Legitimate ! A tongue isn't in itself a flinty bone
Yet could fragment relics doubtable to atone.
Categories:
flinty, betrayal, metaphor,
Form:
Rhyme
These hands mend minds and massage maimed muscles
These hands protect the powerless providing strength to suffering souls
These hands rarely rest, they’d rather
Save sinners souls from flinty fires
Carry cold welcoming waters toward the thirsty
Fetch food for famished fellows
These hands are always here
Categories:
flinty, friendship
Form:
Alliteration
They didn't want Jesus Christ for their king,
being meek was an utterly detestable thing
They didn't want Him for their king,
what conquering tales could this man bring
They wanted a fierce one like Julius and Alexander,
men who were lecherous and loved to pander
They didn't want a king who was pure and angelic,
they wanted a king who brought back bloody relics
They wanted a king who sung tavern songs,
and endorsed riotous living for living long
They didn't like the way He made His disciples walk,
and how His miracles made sinners give pause and balk
They didn't like to hear the goodly words He spoke,
and how He was surrounded by poor and simple folk
What kind of army was this they scornfully wondered,
that didn't lie or steal, that didn't kill nor plunder
No, this man was worthy of a Pilate rejection,
He with the flinty face of godly perfection
For on His cross it said, "He was the King of the Jews"
but the unbelievers said He wasn't the king they did choose
Don't be like Judas: who for money made a sell-out decision,
and got rejected from being part of the righteous twelve
Those paid to spread the lie that Jesus Christ had not risen
have a very special place reserved for them in hell
Categories:
flinty, bible, christian,
Form:
Rhyme
They taught me at Sunday school
that the Spirit's wind; and cool.
On a night cool and windy,
my eyes were wide and flinty.
Through translucent window pane,
jiggled a confused weather vane,
shy which direction to face;
excitement set to race.
Soon the weather vane saw me,
and thrust an arrow at me.
Then heavy patter patter;
the pane began to shatter.
The wind came whistling aloud,
sweet music my ears allowed.
Chilled, I felt the Spirit come:
the room was now wet, I, numb.
As if in a distant dream,
I heard a wren sing, or scream;
a duck quacked, in obvious thrill
of nearby soldiering drill.
My sleepy eyes blinked; I stirred
as the warm morning rays shirred
my thoughts in folds of wonder
at a storm without thunder.
I peeped through the gaping pane;
the sun, calm along its lane,
kept smiling as my mind puzzled,
with my understanding muzzled.
I recalled the Sunday school;
the Spirit could be indeed cool.
Categories:
flinty, faith, fun,
Form:
Rhyme
Crossing the mighty ocean wide
Flinty, determined soul was she
Longing to be Sugar Daddy's bride.
In her homeland, none could see
Any good qualities that be
Maybe if there was a dowry
A marriage could have been arranged
He did not know there was a bounty
Nor that his bride quite deranged
And all his money to be exchanged
His bride was on the passenger ship
Her baggage aboard Lockheed C-5 Galaxy
That should have been a signal ~relationship snip
The wedding over, destruction casually
set in, his funds transferred rampantly
Categories:
flinty, corruption, wedding,
Form:
Quintain (English)
When the radio played
And you thought you could win me
with a handwritten note declaring your pain
in my absence and with hubris
of your youth, you told me of the softness of my mouth, you knew it,
to be gained by forceful lips, again, of youth
that lived on beyond its time
Because your daddy slept on the couch and your momma
never asked for anything and you never knew
there were things a woman could want
So you pushed for me, and stood in the yard
as summer’s light dimmed evening after evening
And I believed that summer would never end,
that desire would never end
I knew a woman should want, my daddy
brought home sweet peonies that grew beside the dairy barn
and leaned down to kiss my momma at the kitchen table
and touched the top of my head
But your face, flinty, shadowed, was like a dare
for something in the end that would pierce me
with a dangerous pleasure and so I prepared.
When I was ready for you
you had found her, the one whose daddy
had left home altogether.
Categories:
flinty, childhood, dad, daughter, father
Form:
Free verse
It's quiet now, too quiet for Spring:
Sere-brown matted grasses huddle close,
Clinging tightly to patches of congealed Earth,
Nature's chill bosom flinty and unyielding.
No wind yet whips up tremble in bush or tree--
Branches too-long barren of bud or twig--
Or ruffles gentle water's surface in the brook or stream
Of wild woods and forests, yet napping darkly...
...'Til warm breezes whisper, stirring souls and spirits:
Then do wondering necks snap to attention, nostrils flare,
Eyes widen, ears like antennae, twitch on high-alert.
Then do voices emerge, as waving grasses secrete their dew,
As tree buds burst forth, tiny gnarled knobs rubbing rheum drops
From their orbs, freeing visions from winter's howl.
Spring newly resurgent, resplendent, glorious, Inviting!
--As lovers loll the sandy beach, mingling with the moonbeams.
Categories:
flinty, love, sound, spring, tree,
Form:
Free verse