Best Girders Poems
jampacked city streets
that jangled and banged
in the raucous jarring day
shifted
from business to boogaloo
squeezing into moonlight
party lights
gin and lime-kissed
gimlet sequined dress
strutted
in studded six-inch heels
riveting flair
provoking jive and jazzy nights
to tame this lion of New York
The bed swallowed the evening
sucked-up in slumbered
sobering snooze
exhaling the drunkard’s stench
while the warmth of whiskey
and you next to me
laid dreamy still
popped up and propped up
restless and ragged
realizing the changing view
through the dirt-stained window
a pool of placid sunrise
igniting
colorless clustered towers
bulwarks and girders
scraping the sky
out of the easterly clouds
a creeping golden palette
arose
touching every crevice
defining each silhouette
your body stirs deliberate and slow
rainbow hued eyes
slenderly slitted catching
the new-found light
opening, tenderly revealing
the landscape of your smile
disclosing
a cozy contentment
waking with hello
as I fall into your dream
and a new day
Categories:
girders, city, culture, day, new
Form:
Free verse
Trust, Was A Bridge, Between Us
Now, Blown To Bits and Dust !
Scattered Upon Waters of Fear
Too Far Down, To Bring Near
Trust, Was The Bridge, Between Us
Tottering and Unsafe, Due To Rust
Its Base, Was Sinking and Cracked
Cables Snapped, No Getting Back !
Trust, Was A Bridge, Between Us
Used To Stand-Up To Raging Gusts !
We Could Cross Over To Either Side
Hold Onto The Girders … And Stride
Trust, Was The Bridge, Between Us
Repairing It Now … Is A Bust !
So, Can This RelationShip, Sail To Both Shoals
Build A New Bridge, With A Higher Toll ?
… Trust … Is A Bridge, Between Us
Guard It Well … This Time, Is A Must …
Categories:
girders, allegory, family, forgiveness, friendship,
Form:
Light Verse
Scarecrow Addict
Gritted and dusty
Powered by flack jacket eyes
Bootsteps through grey puddles
Flotilla of cigarette butts
Trash kicked aside
In a desert of litter
Seeking the soulless of death
Chattering on split lips
The grimy irk of air
Festoons the rink and rack
The floating black
Sucks unbidden
Horses into battle ridden
Scream through his lungs
Broken weapons
Filled with empty bullets
Enemies in their colours run
Demon angel
Of the iridescent metal
In the bars of sculptured hell
For the hot choke of alcohol
Has squandered his nights
And burnt his will
The vengeance of mirrors
He cannot defy
He has become
The man with the gun
And rabid dog bark
Is the music
The fang gangster rap
Chews on his pride
Coughs back and spits
Too many drugs
To fill his hate
As he seethes through the alleys
The ricochet sound of poverty
Slaps hard at the cold
Whistle through the doorstep
The vicious snide crack
Scavenges his chest
Scarecrow buckshot
Trammels his lungs
And coughs up plastic
Iron girders against shattered walls
Where the whole world threw up
His sick
Chokes on the disgusting chuck up
Of need
So full of promises
But still lets in the freezing winds
To whined up urine stained
In the pallor
The colour
Of his sky
Bandit warrior and loser
This brave young man
Watched this driven and ploughed memory
Eat away
By iron vice drag
Devastate his pale haired wench
Leaving blood trailing on her breast
Pimped
She was
And hate in grey battered uniforms
Drove the callous on
And lifted him from the reeking cans
Of his desolation
Bled him through nights of sweat
And cold turkey chewed regret
The plaster wet billboard and pealing advert
Have no idea
What they have unleashed
Brittle as long dead bones
And screaming head
No longer hates
But still sneers revenge
In tattered loose rags
He staggers from the vomiting pit
Emaciated wolf
The grinning scarecrow eyes of merciless
And the jagged teeth of candle lit
The reek of vendetta
Hangs ever about his lips
And woe betide the gun smith
Woe betide indeed the needles
Wet prick
Nothing left to fight for
Other than
A long dead
Lover
Categories:
girders, urban
Form:
Free verse
Anchored in the solid granite cliffs
On either side of the tree-lined gorge,
Above the C&O tracks and rickety shacks
Of farmers and miners and naked children
Playing in the dirt ‘neath the front porch,
Who stop to watch the coal train passing
Underneath the arching silver steel girders
Wondering wide-eyed how they built that bridge! --
Way up yonder like a humongous gray rainbow
With its promise of faraway places,
And pots of gold someday in recurring dreams,
Knowing it’s not likely they will escape
Just like none of their older kinfolk did
Even though they believed that bridge
Was the road to places somewhere, anywhere
Away from deep and narrow seams of coal,
And raw memories of their poverty-stained childhood.
FIRST PLACE WINNER
a Brian Strand Contest
Poetry Soup, January 14, 2022
Categories:
girders, culture, hope, metaphor, perspective,
Form:
Free verse
ginkgo
a mental spur
from a Chinese tree with
fan-shaped leaves that makes tea and thought
girders.
Categories:
girders, introspection, life, nature, uplifting,
Form:
Cinquain
brush in hand, he breathes life to paper ...
columns ... bejeweled and sparkling
like blades of shimmering grass
piercing the night as star-flecked stalagmites
fingers of phosphorescent proficiency
flickering with the finest of human accomplishment
and twirling through the ether like fairies
darting and dancing to the throb of frantic grids below
glowing girders and gangling spires, agleam
trembling with the concerns of life
and dressed in the temperate weight of wonder
a thousand stories born each elegant instant
countless dramas and conundrums
spinning to their inexorable ends
numberless breaths gasped and giggled
heart-upon-heart pumping ire and exasperation
thrumming with passions, proved and pondered
or the typic pulse of the prosaic
a glistening garden of "la condition humaine"
a beast born of concrete and light ...
its urbane and provocative heart, beating ...
the canvas has come ... to LIFE!
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Something Bigger Than Myself" Poetry Contest,
Line Gauthier, Judge & Sponsor.
N/A'd in the "Cityscape" Poetry Contest.
Categories:
girders, appreciation, beauty, city, humanity,
Form:
Free verse
yea tis history - that end gin shelled a mesh by mit Romney wailin
such below figurative belt mortar attack subterfuge and constant railin
per accusations hurled at barack Obama presidential campaign
lobbed like scud missile grenades from invisible hand no longer m palin
in comparison and hence moot point for republicans to gain
so this joe of a voter re-fused 2 bide time 2 prevent candidate from failin
app laud clinched 2nd term deserved and occupy white house seat a gain
intent i wanna talia 2 acknowledge salient tactics to boost usa now ailin
sasha bravado blasting and gunning futile fusillades
which questionable oppositional stealth indiscriminately fired pell mell
to discredit supreme commander in chief an exemplary persona in the main
such desperate toothless and nail biting tactics
replete with political retaliatory slanderous stockpile bombardment
but rather, he opts to build fracking rainbow coal bridges 2 somewhere
over the rainbow toward future with his omnipotent time tested girders
of righteousness and gravitas quite simple and plain
casting confidence that the democrats rank as the robust strongest train
eclipsing her livid burst of 15 minutes fame that briefly wax than wane!
Categories:
girders, black african american, courage,
Form:
Elegy
Sandpiper Pausing...Again
What times are these
where hearts run hot and cold
ceaseless conscience alerts
remind us of steel girders fallen prone
entombments sealed
their distant voice remembered well
Compassion's lens peers through
this fallen metropolis of micro-flesh
this glass transparency
engulfed by forsaken smoke
knowing today's ethereal
descends as heart's residue
embracing darkness recalled
clock hands stopping
media rushing to air-time
yet never to be out of date
Silence remembers
fused tragedies
crumbling worlds
bodies falling
hearts broken
Yet
learning comes hard
More violence breaks the silence
cacophonous pandemonium
empty shell casings bouncing
pop pop pop pop pop
children's pleas
teachers' bravery
first responder's sorrow
parents traumatized
grievance everywhere
Sterility reigns
Washington defers
barbarity's extended abyss
the next tragic moment to define
insensitive that irresponsible behavior
will spawn new memories
destined to awaken vanquished yesterdays
Like a video game of archaic gulosity
certain chameleon passions remain insatiable
indecisive apathy-driven appetites
fuel congressional obstruction
While at the shore
A sandpiper pauses
beneath remembered ash
echoed violence
unredeemable screams
floating atop societal trade winds
seeming to be never forgotten
Like other creatures of blood that flows
eyes that see
ears that hear
hearts remaining conscious
knows not cowardice
Even a bird understands that
And so...
Even as the sandpiper probes away
its discovered sustenance hard fought
its needs remaining small
congressional appetites of power and greed
continue sated only with constituency expectation
indulging in anticipated 2013's gluttonous reward
thinking the next tragedy but finger food
the next gun sales windfall a payback for re-election
answering the next challenge of moral impotency with...
Not a problem
Not a problem
Categories:
girders, political,
Form:
Free verse
Building Materials
It takes so long to understand
How the fractures of the past
Reach the home of the future
With such a stealthy hand
All the foundations
That you braced and propped
All the restorations
Made in cement and bricks
The plasterwork
Which seemed so seamless
Begins to show the cracks
While the girders and supports
Begin to resemble
A prison
Your own hands have wrought
Time you felt would give you time
Built that time, but it has slipped away
Behind the stalwart barriers
You designed to keep the time
At bay
You didn’t think to hide yourself away
But nobody knows you now
Anyway
No one can see you
Through the cage
And from the panoramic view of your eyes
You toss your crumpled warnings
To anyone who is searching for suggestions
On building materials
“Only fools turn their back on their heart”
“Only fools turn their back on love”
“Only fools paper over the agony
and believe in someone else”
“Only fools choose something other than love
“for building materials”
“Love’s a split between
yourself and someone else
“Martyrdom is not an expression
of a truly loving heart”
“It’s a sacrifice unasked for
from the loves in your life”
“It’s a solitary sacrifice”
This message I throw from my high walled
Window
High from the tower
I built my own
Not by choice these props and girders
These adobe bricks of sand and straw
I never knew
What these bricks
Were for
Categories:
girders, life
Form:
Free verse
Buildings scrap the airborne dust
The hillside charming each brick
And iron girders, shoveled neatly into
Concrete pits, opening this page of
Your mind to the stones of culture.
What can you think of and I will
Buy it for you? Is this my only
Breath. Think of the center that
Lived, nature the grasses and deer
That are now buried underneath the
Driveways.
Loss is the center of being that will
No more touch the living pines or
Wildflowers, only a plastic steering
Wheel or cash in my pocket. Iron my
Only sight on a quiet walk to the green
Path listening for what used to be called
the birds singing.
The Center
Julie Heckman
8/2/2015
Categories:
girders, conflict, confusion,
Form:
Free verse
With that invisibilty of age
I can fly my life like a kite !
Uninvited and unseen,
albescent, grey, you know what I mean,
( not the first flush of youth or strong,
the young forget that we were young, )
hold on to that, the string of that
to grip the meaning of it
as I grip the iron balustrade
along the miles of esplanade ;
think the century's wise men are ignored,
each lamp a light, a sage for each lamp.... ...
Drawn to the Sailor's Arms, her kegs
the weight of years upon the legs,
for whispers round an inglenook
where galaxies are in the glass,
to swap a tale, another round,
a golden fleece, a crumpled map !
Or waft around for words, like smoke
along the butt - ends from the tar,
or vanish down into the draught
if Alan Watts is at the bar.... ...
Below, where gulls quarrel in kelp
no harbour there need shelter me,
no life - boat slip to cries for help
need bring my spirit to the lee -
I hear the past with all its murders,
the wind wail through the rusting girders
yet still am I, free to fly with you
who lean against the railings, too !... ...
The world may seem to come in bits -
let nonduality begin ?
Come celebrate your opposites
for all depends on loss to win !
Tribal culture in your face -
to win is everywhere you turn,
if God is losing all the time
then will we ever, ever learn ?... ...
'You'll win' he said, 'its in the bag',
out on the point
what can the mindless wind do
but wave the flag?
Missing the point forever
signalling our nascent spirit.
And the voice said
'raise your head when the night is cloudless
and tell me who you are subject to,
remember the truth of your own story
as your eyes take in the glory'.... ...
Full to be empty, empty to be full -
do you hear the paradox, do you feel the pull ?
I do not mean to be patronising,
have I asked you too soon ?
Do you see what I mean when you gaze at the moon,
when the full moon, lifeless is full of light ?... ...
I sit upon the lobster pots
that decorate the harbour wall,
if you come a little closer
you can see me in the hall,
if you do not hold the key-
Mrs keepings locks the door,
I'll be looking out to sea
after eight but not before.... ... ...
Categories:
girders, introspection, life, love, mystery,
Form:
Epic
I think of my ancestors building you,
Tying and placing tree-trunks, like girders, in queue;
They constructed you, then, with stones,
Twisted, turned, criss-crossed, hung, dangled in zones;
Road bridge, railway bridge, gate bridge, bay bridge,
You resembled longest and tallest mountain ridge;
Clapper, beam, truss, arch… you became suspension,
Cantilever, cable-stay, movable, floating, and high-tension;
How fond designs you are in, today, like miracles,
Magic of marvelous magicians waiting for oracles...
Travelling from place to place, and meeting people,
You build up relationships from valleys to hill steeple;
Though, through you, communication is continually created,
Has communion betwixt hearts clemently elated?
Connecting, interacting, do you construct relations?
Beyond hills and cliffs and national foundation…
Socialization, cultural extension, and environs easy,
You’re sometimes breezy and other sleazy and queasy...
Cognition, senses, sensation, and sensitivity,
Once broken impulsively, aren’t you in vainly pity...???
15 March 202
Categories:
girders, relationship,
Form:
Free verse
“Karlsruhe Hbf”
A man wore a bib on the outside of his down jacket
at Weiner Feinbacher.
Struedel doesn’t drip.
Poinsettias from Blumen leaving on the next train,
maybe from the same platform where
945 Jews departed.
Citizens unwillingly embarked.
The beginning of the end of their journeys.
Now 500 Euro strollers pass by the obscure corner
where Officials placed the not too big “Fidelitas” sign,
a generous, shame filled, failed attempt
to tell the truth about the indescribable horrors.
The façade a beautiful art deco of scalloped concrete.
Tracks supported by stylized
girders of industrial progress.
How many opatrons passing beneath
the abundant curtains of Christmas lights,
grabbing a McCafe for the ICE,
recall the role the Hauptbahnhof played
for the victims of the 3rd Reich.
Has it been long enough, too long,
to constantly commemorate?
Veritas, Fidelitas.
If the sign were bigger and put somewhere so
People would see it, going to or from the planned Karlsruhe,
It would be another start.
- - -
JDZoller - Copyright © December 2009
Categories:
girders, war
Form:
Free verse
Desertion
the wind whispers “lonely”
at the roller coaster pier
where happy screams of delight fright
still haunt the atmosphere
the rust moans “empty”
on a deserted Ferris Wheel
where lovers sought the height of night
now only girders squeal
the sky speaks in thunder
above the amusement park
a place where children’s laughs of glee
echo in cold and dark
10/30/17
The Sounds of the Past
Eve Roper, Sponsor
Categories:
girders, absence, loneliness,
Form:
Quatrain
The new 950-ton bridge would beat
down time dashing to classes cheat
ting vulnerability asper thick traffic
putting life at risk,
thus laudatory alternative
intending to offer Sweetwater
to last a lifetime would make fleet
(installed at Florida International University,
with eager pedestrians ready to greet
crossing grand opening,
where local dignitaries didst meet
viz Miami-Dade County
Saturday (March eleventh 2018)
witnessing ghastly collapsed
Thursday (March fifteenth 2018)
afternoon onto Southwest Eighth Street.
An unknown number
of fatalities surmised,
while several others
were hospitalized.
Prior to groundbreaking
with placement guised
of the attendant pomp
and circumstances exercised
setting cornerstone,
the projected
general estimation apprised
sans building costs totaled $14.2 million
and funded as part of a $19.4 million grant
from the US Department of Transportation.
The fact sheet boasted the sheer intensity
comparable to withstand strength of a
category 5 hurricane, and supposed to last
for more than 100 years.
Within the blink of an eye, no ifs ands,
nor abutments squared with ratiocination
earning civil engineers bragging rights,
which boastful, delightful, fanciful stead
fastness touted thwarting titanic tenable
taxing shocked Katrina and the waves.
Now only a scattered pile (formerly comp
rising beams footings, and piers) of rein
forced concrete capped with a bent ele
ment defying hallelujahs, karaoke kudos,
and bobble headed nods,
now impish jinns keep leering, mocking,
and naysaying to fading echoing reverberations
leveled at the laughingstock of an architectural
(duff) feat. Further scrutiny will attempt to cap
chore structural weaknesses. Amidst snapped,
crackled, and popped strewn cables entwined girders
(whose premature destruction) will also warrant
any arresting tell tale signs of unusual stress.
Categories:
girders, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Dramatic Verse