As kids are often want to do, I played in muddy creeks
and excavated treasures whose value couldn’t keep.
A rod of cherry wood, a rock that’s colored peach,
and soda cans which all developed leaks.
I loved them all and left them on their own
to brave the world beside my shackled home.
Better that than let a parent’s hapless hand
direct my treasures to the garbage can.
Like weeds that spring, I sprouted in my youth
and found my roots were also pulling loose.
I left that town and gave-up make believe,
leaving untold wealth beneath the amber leaves.
when they excavated my back yard they discovered dinosaur bones
It was an intact skeleton of a stegosaurus, and it bellowed at them.
Being men, they were afraid, and left the area, but not without screaming.
My girlfriends and I went out to investigate. One of them called her a fossil.
The skeleton cried. “I have a name,” she told us. It’s not Fossil!”
No one but me heard her, so I sent them home. I wanted her to myself.
Her name was Gladys, and she had been in the earth a long time.
I brought her into the house through the sliding door.
Taught her to cook, bake, and vacuum. We had a great life together.
I could not tell just anyone this, but you are my therapist, right?
The zone is a crease.
Like a dimple of haunting.
Diving into the wild sensation.
Feeling prickly.
Pine trees grow at night.
There is a vampire.
Takes all the pinecones to his nest.
Spiraling like October does.
The zone is a person.
Like me except she is a ghost.
Or worse.
Eats worse things.
They grow at night.
We know because,
The prickling.
Like rabid spiders.
A place under construction.
All the time, being excavated.
By wild, mysterious beings.
Like me, but worse.
They grow at night.
Pop up by morning,
And no one believes me when I tell them…
You can’t cross there.
Someone always does.
And gets eaten by a pine tree.
Growls and snarls.
In this nothing-world.
The zone.
Is under construction.
It’s not the place.
It’s us.
There are no answers,
just the outgoing tide
leaving a poem written
in the sand to be washed
away when the tide
comes in again.
I am lost in the detail,
the exquisite swirls
and rippled script
of its creation, I explore
each worm excavated hole
as if it hides
a secret truth within
when I know it doesn't.
Meaning is beyond
the cycles of the tides,
beyond my mind
and even this world -
it is written across
the shoreline of the infinite
echoing like a seashell
in the places I have
never been able
to fill.
In modern day times since twenty-fifteen
Fifty new species of dinosaurs have been seen
Because new places are being rapidly excavated
Excitement generated cannot be overstated
Stone clad hotels and banks,
stone-faced facades.
Stone monuments carved by old money.
The stone-poor have no stone history,
they will leave no archeology
to be excavated and raised.
Their throw-away artifacts
go to the landfills,
If they have stone. it must be dug up
to clear the way for more hard-scabble.
Here is a celluloid picture,
I am in my prime,
a pretty woman by my side,
we walk a downtown boulevard
where solid stone is raised high.
The image engenders another image,
that same photograph
bursting into flame,
now curling to ash in a grand chimney
and hearthside,
a fireplace that speaks
of an opulent and gilt-edged wealth -
one built of an ageless and abiding
stone.
A simple misconception,
Can lead to endless argumentation.
Once it started its initiation,
It'll always have a continuation.
The tension escalates,
While the calmness disintegrates.
How can you mitigate?
A situation from someone obstinate.
Everything starts small,
Then out of its area, it'll crawl.
Slowly climbing over the wall,
Leading to the downfall.
You're not someone I hate,
It's not even up for debate.
Your hunger can't be sated,
You'll uproot all, as if excavated.
The more we talk, the less we agree,
A situation everyone wants to flee.
When every point sparks a ghastly decree,
It can burst into a destructive degree.
Understand the concept,
Don't be inept.
Words have different depth;
If unsure, then don't make a step.
Avoid provocation,
Think of the conclusion.
It might destroy the dominion,
That grew from your affection.
Don't make any sudden demand,
Take a moment to understand.
Misunderstanding is like a quicksand;
Just a step and you'll be a part of the land.
Call it yours, Call it mine,
The tale we wrote was glorifying.
I was a driller ,
Your eyes were the mine.
'Excavated until I could see through them,
The mesmerizing light was the love with shine .
Light wet eyes with high hopes charm,
The cold beat I got when it met mine.
The skipped beat and the heartily terror,
Brought a smile not of fear.
Our eyes were talking mouth hardly said a word,
'Cause it was enough for the bashful us.
Beats were fast I could not resist,
I had them on the first place when you saw me.
But kept them aside so no one will know ,
Stopped saying 'cause no word could rhyme.
The moment was over but I loved the past,
Past was the journal and I could not stop encoding your thought .
All I had was this tale as mine,
And now I stopped cause no word could rhyme.
The years have not mildewed
for my moss is deep and soft,
it is a fine as baby hair
as thick as an uncut meadow.
Somewhere there are lands I have plowed
over and over,
beneath which are the fragments
of chalky skeletons,
the remains of scant harvests.
Time accumulates a life,
caves and cave-ins layer atop each other,
and above it all
the moss flourishes
to cover an abandoned machinery
that once excavated molehills.
Rusted tools, implements
now all buried
yet still they seep iron
into my earth.
My moss is threaded with clover,
a greening stronger than steel.
I am heaped and rounded
a place for buttercups in summer,
and when a winter-tide
seeks out that velvet plush,
it shall not bite nor crush
but lay as a companion beside me.
Water tapping against the ruins
Of hidden earth
Lines that we have written in the stars
Like a flower grown from seed
That’s lost at birth
We count on one another
To remind us of who we are
The passage of time is but a memory
That we save
Where we dance and fall in love
And pretend to play the game
But not a trace of what we were
Can be taken to the grave
As we lose our faith in trust
Then just turn and walk away
From the ruins of evil
We are buried with the past
Excavated with the ashes
From the burning of our bridge
So bound we are in time
That our dreams don’t stand a chance
To search for our horizon
And to see beyond the ridge
The world has been my ruin
With the crossing of your tracks
I refused your trembling hands
And the sadness in your eyes
Your change with every season
Was the gift that brought me back
But now I trace you in the sand
As your ocean waves goodbye
Michael 1/19/2022
A Web waits in its black nest.
A thousand and one fledglings
cry for attention
open throat's as red as blood.
I consider not writing anything,
the last line I wrote
wants to be the next one.
I am ignoring, prevaricating,
adding cut and paste time capsules
to a white field.
I distract the uncurling cat of creation,
slow down the pace of a tidal pulse
with breast-plated breaths.
Voices remain un-excavated,
but only for a moment,
then the banshee wail
of the newborn rattle my eye-glass windows
and it begins again.
Unearthing blind roots, cyclic thoughts
spin round again
as if they had just come to me,
and had not been arriving forever.
Abandoned living-spaces excavated
from under the forgotten foundations
of elsewhere.
Places we leave our sweat in,
litter that never goes away,
stuff in pockets that once belonged
to a best jacket.
A best life thus far – but when?
She dug a hole in the earth
& buried her heart where no one
Could find it.
Through my tongue I have dug
And excavated through a person
I thought I knew.
A region I still travel both known and unknown.
Through ancient wisdom & modern text,
A known philosopher of over 500 texts.
Though I read tirelessly, I lost sense of direction
Through hieroglyphic palpitations
Circa the first breath taken in front of you.
She dug a hole in the earth & filled it with dirt.
A language lost and undisturbed.
Her heart a eutopia, massive & hidden
From history.
Through hard dirt and torn tongue
The tip of my tongue struck something soft
& compromising.
Alas, I have journeyed to the center of your chest
& survived.
Through dirt and torn tongue, here we lay
Fossilized in the center of your chest,
Until everything rumbles
& your heart spews through your chest
Like lava.
Only then could we live again in a region
Truly meant for us
They excavated him, her youngest son,
who passed away too soon at age nineteen,
to join her second son, who had just died
at fifty-five- to the new hollowed plot.
There, side-by-side- together, brothers slept
neath velvet grass, under a graceful tree,
where she would leave her flowers and her tears;
a mother's love for them would always be.
No way would she have come to realize-
three years from when she joined her precious sons-
another excavation would take place-
where she would rest with them eternally.
One plot, three graves- a mother and two sons-
a final excavation- filled with love.
July 1, 2021
Contest: This Or That, Vol 4
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Unrhymed Sonnet
(true story)
Another roll-over-in-bed poem
A nose blow and a wide yawn separates a lubricated **** scene from a gravelly scripture. In that gap, the harlot’s far from the screen.
My blade’s lacquer reveals the blood of my nightmares. Evasive mirrors hide the sum of my white hairs. The mucus of the acetic isn’t enough to stir up lust for a ghost, so I scroll for a post that soothes me the most.
When they let me in the garden, I don’t bite the apple; the yoni is worshipful.
It’s buried in the pit, and excavated in the chambers.
It is massaged. It is kissed. It is suckled. I return to sleep.
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