Geologists say ‘by your leave’,
we’re famously polite:
we wear our heart upon our sleeve,
rejoice at rhyolite.
We’re very patient people, but
I tolerated stuff before
that I’m not taking any more:
up with this I will not put.
Don’t bring to me your xenolith,
preposterous, fantastic:
I’m done with make-believe and myth:
my ire is pyroclastic.
Don’t tell me pressure makes a gem,
discomfort forges what’s sublime:
the aimless drip of frameless time
creates a speleothem.
Some things improve with age, it’s true,
while others just feel dated:
to sleight of hand, to me and you,
I’m simply indurated.
I’m wise to every move you make –
I’m distanced from your wiles,
meanders, stratagems and smiles -
a placid oxbow lake.
It was hefted upon a breeze -
As in a warm, flowing current
Through a sea of palo verdes -
To search for an embankment.
That seed of promise -
An implicit aster -
Was sent to broken gneiss
To become one with nature -
A golden bloom to come
To an expectant glen -
Not knowing how it found home
Except that it did.
The world is so attached to this perceived device
Lost is the romance of rolling the proverbial dice
What would it be like; if we remembered to entice?
Instead, we only tax each other to a ruined excise
Until all our souls breath is cold as new formed ice
Seeing impurities; in the aspects that we are precise
Most are shown to have spines akin to the ghosts of mice
Our days spent trying to quantify our life's value price
Seeking to achieve a version of paradise
All while searching for an unattainable entitled slice
Without giving an offering to self-sacrifice
No real effort to make the world better will suffice
This verse with judgment; am I withholding advice?
Peel back the lamination of this to reveal its true gneiss
Questioning; who do you know; would you ever think twice?
Swimming times river, looking for every-ones; selfish vice
Zambezi's strength rules
who can harness our river?
electricity from water?
Nyami, Nyami
Kariba Dam damaged
by six decades of water
the Tonga tribes celebrate
Nyami, Nyami
May 10, 2022
Joseph May's contest on Naani.
Two naani of 24 syllables each
current statements about currents
When the Kariba Dam was built on the Zambezi, the Tonga people had doubts.
The dam was built on gneiss and quartzite and is made of concrete — 80 feet at its thickest point. But over six decades of the waters' rushing through it, tumbling over it and crashing down on its other side have carved a pit at its base and erosion threatens its foundations. July 22, 2020
The very thought of a naani about Nyam Nyami sparked my muse.
It is the River God of the Tonga people.
confussion and frustration
made the task a chore
it favored longety which
at first evaluation
of the work had been ignored
in referance to the group
we were straong and committed
but in labor
we were divided
and uncommitted.
I felt cheap and used
like a man who wished
more attention from his
lover.
I must sort the collected
bunch
to then label and
make inventory
according to fiber strenght
and stone value
monodisperse silca
and kenaf ramie
Corundum Degelman i
curses these stones
a plie high to the ceiling.
Gneiss Schulte I curse
these men that labor
me in such reeling
Titanium Zirconium
that I must crush the valueless stones
and sort those of vsalue
must i chore
that they are evasive and lazy
that I must labor alone
^
A Gealic Song
Gneiss.
Ancient.
Vying with Earth herself for the Crown of Age.
In the Hebrides
Lie the Stones of Calanais
Stubborn chthonic deities of a common past
Rising up and standing against all.
You
More than a beautiful metaphor
Of what I have seen forged in that deep, deep heart;
A heart deep as the songs of Burns on thistle
Or lilting starlings in murmuration ---
Fluid patterns emerging and re-forming.
Such speed at odds with those silent Stones
The Stones of Calanais
The monuments to time
Birthed in an altogether different aeon
Which presaged your very strength
In adumbrated timelessness...
Burnished equipoise in the craftsman's hand.
I cannot move thee
But I can embrace thee
My Gaelic love---
The strength of woman is you
The gift of love you gave
Sits in me like those magic Stones
Rising from our mutual earth
Stretching towards infinite stars.
New boots, pressing on my heels,
still stiff, not yet broken in,
stomping on roots, beds of needles
dropped by towering white pines,
scuffing on gneiss and granite
as they pound down the trail.
Have been walking since early morn,
a long trail on a high peak
in the far north of New York.
first break in the rain in a week,
makes for a very wet trail,
but a hiker goes when he can
and always watches the skies.
Got up to the peak, saw far clouds
moving quickly on the wind,
zephyr pushing them from the west,
so I double-timed it down.
I know that it’s coming soon,
weatherman was wrong again.
Glint of glass and chrome through trees,
sure sign of trail-head parking lot,
take off bear-mace and big knife,
change my shirt and clamber in.
Relax and breath for a moment,
muscles tense like coiled springs.
Then a drop on the windshield,
another and another, slow at first,
the heavens open fire on us all,
big, downpour drops ring off metal.
Tired as I am, I will wait,
rest a bit until it slackens.
At least I’m not still up there…
Poetry Advice
I’m about to submit some advice
Solid as poetry’s gneiss:
- A word to the wise
- Don’t plagiarize,
You’ll be squeezed in a strong legal vice!
Sea the wight-capped waives rolling inn the see;
here the howling wynds, wile I’m standing hear,
whale and forme hi waives. Theirs eh jumping wail-
tale upp inn the ayre! This should make gneiss tail
two tel wen eye get holm. Butt now theirs too
blew wales inn wiaves- there water spouts just blue!
Whether getting worse, kneed two sea weather
it's my thyme too lieve since wynd now blows it’s
grate, whiled sounds awl across the see, witch great
allowed and shriek. Could bee, I’m knot aloud
write hear two stay- dew knot want gnus too right,
“Sum man fell inn the see and payed the some
witch cost his life from storms angry whiled which.”
Week legs mite make mi sync and fall; eh weak
wood pass before they fined mi with eh would
bored inn my grippe from roe boat beet and board
bye waives and whild wynds that kame and flue buy.
Eye no, its thyme too lieve, cum back wen aye
cee com, and eye can stay eh wile two sea
wails jump inn waives without the wynd’s whiled whales.
April 7, 2015
~2nd Place~
Contest: Only Homo’s Allowed
Sponsor: Jerry T. Curtis
Judged: 04/30/2015
(Homophones)
Concrete Idea
Metal falls from the sky without sound
Bluish white cadmium and nickel
Trees follow in their shadow
Disintegrate on contact
A simple thermometer reads common thoughts
When in a dream of water
But this is an element of surprise
Coming to life in our real world while awake
Science rises to the occasion of simple speculation
Something caused the event near by the lake
Trees just don’t disappear….disintegrate
An asteroid made of metals could have done it
Or something similar comes to mind
The September 10, 2013 meteorite discovery
The 6 tailed asteroid P/2013 P5 made of rocks could be the culprit
Or one of its cousins caused the blaze and ultimate find
Perhaps gneiss, schist; slate or even marble metamorphic rocks
Determined the destruction at the site
It must have been an asteroid of some sort….There’re sure
But nothing concrete from science is found in this tale
Except the Hubble discovery of a 6 tailed meteor called P/2013 P5
And that’s the only solid idea and concrete thought to share
Today I saw a daughter laid to rest.
A mother tries to heed her own advice.
Holding it in surely put her to the test.
She failed more than once or twice.
Her failing was no artificial device.
She tried, Lord how hard she tried.
She simply could not pay the price.
She cried, oh how the mother cried.
She was a fifth grade teacher, the best.
The kids all sought her out for advice.
Fifty Eight, so young but so blessed,
too young, to pay this enormous price,
too old to fashion protective gneiss.
Her mother knew of this fierce pride.
Yet, she couldn’t save her baby’s life.
She cried, oh how the mother cried.
The building now full, still they pressed,
her former students, learning pain of life.
From one loved, who had faced the test,
and had not complained about sacrifice.
While a mother mortally wounded twice
who faced this when her husband died
hopes to God she will not see this thrice.
She cried, oh how the mother cried
The mother, paying the mother’s price,
before her eyes could have fully dried.
With more than enough love to suffice,
she cried, and oh how the mother cried.
For Catie's ballade contest
Feb 22, 2011