A declaration of love etches
itself deep into a bed of soft sandstone.
The kind that's hastily scratched on
with nothing more than a stone
found on the nearby ground.
The letters are shaky, imperfect
but the heart that binds them is true.
Some initials are old, some much younger
yet all possess the flair of emotion that their carvers had.
Inevitably, they will be washed away
by wind or by water, nothing lasts,
not even the wall which they are etched onto
but in the moment, there was love.
A thousand fair suitors all stab at your heart,
those poets of movement and jockeys of art.
The high-volume vendors who hustle romance,
splashing their canvas with color and dance.
The blasters of trumpets, gold banners unfurled,
they offer lush gardens in glistening worlds;
yes, bearers of torches and carvers of stone
who whisper their sonnets and surrender their thrones.
There in your doorway, no shadow is cast,
no lingering voices, no ghosts from the past.
Just a cluster of walls and a window of pain
collecting the heartaches like droplets of rain.
Still I stand before you with palms to the sky,
no gold in my pocket, no position high;
and all I can offer where words have no place
is a heart that is true and this love that awaits.
The nobility, the priesthood,
The common, the slaves
A life's journey fixed,
Elected for life or
Passed from father to son.
Omens, divinations,
Predictions, reading future
They were skilled mathematicians,
Historians, keepers of knowledge
Recorded details in codices.
Books of fig bark paper
Mayans wrote, kept count
Of Sun's path, tracked Venus
With surprising Accuracy,
Marked zenith twined with beliefs
Hard workers ate well,
Worshiped their many gods
In willing exuberance
Artisans, carvers,
Traded true, cities grew
Peaceful obsidian warriors
Extravagant kings and queens
Fell to their own intelligence
Wrath of gods unfurled red-carpet
For death and destruction
Nothing to eat, nothing to carve,
Nothing to record, nothing to trade,
Nothing to fight, none left to please god
Nothing to sacrifice, simply collapsed.
They weren't spared, would we be?
Why would one ask,
If the carving of a mask
Is, indeed, a task
When to simply this question ask
Is itself a task?
Mask carvers in their job bask,
Their wine glasses beside a cask,
Their African salad in their flask,
Their own faces a beatific Mask…
Sweet styles of reducing the heat
From a long sitting on a seat,
A surer method of catching ones breath
Man’s enacting of the lion’s stealth.
A thousand fair suitors all stab at your heart,
those poets of movement and jockeys of art.
The high-volume vendors who hustle romance,
splashing their canvas with color and dance.
The blasters of trumpets, gold banners unfurled,
they offer lush gardens in glistening worlds;
yes, bearers of torches and carvers of stone
who whisper their sonnets and surrender their thrones.
There in your doorway, no shadow is cast,
no lingering voices, no ghosts from the past.
Just a cluster of walls and a window of pain
collecting the heartaches like droplets of rain.
Still I stand before you with palms to the sky,
no gold in my pocket, no position high;
and all I can offer where words have no place
is a heart that is true and this love that awaits.
With chisels, carvers
Chip away bits and pieces
Sinewy fibre;
What emerges from the wood
Is the essence of its soul.
CHOP SHOP
The Villages at Carver ate
Four tires and a steering wheel
Their hunger pangs would not abate
So they acquired plans to steal
A screwdriver
And a wrench too
A steel hammer
Golf carts unscrew
The Villages at Carver hide
Its many parts in a chop shop
As golfers exercise their stride
Wiping balled sweat until they drop
On dapper lawn
For evil’s spawned
From dusk to dawn
Behind closed doors
The Villages at Carver search
For splintered wood and tools of trade
Amidst the oak and pine and birch
The hidden door reveals a blade
Village gone mad
Carvers past sad
Pitchforks take stand
Revenge at last
The Villages at Carver mass
Drawing a crowd to view a home
Overlooking manicured grass
A course with four golf wheels and chrome
6/27/2017
To make his jack-o-lantern,
My husband wields a knife
And carves a slightly scary face
To make it come to life.
It isn’t sketched or plotted;
Just some time is all he needs
And before he’s even finished,
I have roasted all the seeds.
My son’s approach is different
For the face is deftly planned,
The features poked out gently
With some special tools at hand.
And his jack-o-lantern’s friendly
Since his kids are 3 and 1;
But both pumpkins were terrific,
With both carvers having fun.
Though my husband’s has a candle
And my son’s a phony flame,
Each will flicker Halloween-like
To the family’s great acclaim.
Skeletal garden stalks rattle, shivering,
long leaved arms rustle in the wind,
bony fingers snap in rhythm
to October’s haunting song;
they gather as shadowy hillside wraiths,
spectral companions for Ichabod Crane.
Summer shudders,
scattering abundant harvest corn,
thick as hoar frost,
squirreled away in darkened dens by scurrying rodents,
tasty treats against winter’s frigid tricks.
Wet days drip from the eaves,
hardening in lengthening icy fingers
that pry slippery edges from shortening days.
The pumpkin fields,
beaten chocolate brownie cakes,
sweetened with light snow,
have surrendered fat orange fruits
to carvers’ knives for spicy pies and jack-o-lanterns.
Autumn bridges fire and ice,
a zesty-sweet season splice.
© September 15, 2015
The life in the wood will be revealed by the wood carver.
Chipped away with chisel and mallet; wood displays its secrets.
Wood carvers release the spirits trapped within the wood.
The life in the wood will be revealed by the wood carver.
Chipped away with chisel and mallet; wood displays its secrets.
Wood carvers release the spirits trapped within the wood.
Thanks to the poets who love my words
Meaning in their eggs fly like birds
The snake may suckle slurping in delight
But give them time to be feathered by light
We brotherhood carvers in the tongue
Let your muse break joy this time to live among
The unslithered past of printed page
Lying against the shell of rage.
I sing truth, and truth is my balm in the night
Long after honor has winged her flight
Away from the rough cliffs of barren minds
We poet will be the pole star of all true sign.
Sand carvers paintings
engulfed in magic circles
mandala symbols
(My very first attempt at haiku)