Strange oddities, hoodoos
they stand, stoic and timeless
stranded in red rock country
their solemn, stony faces
staring intently towards the
southwestern horizon.
I pause…
and witness their mighty stance
resolute and silent
an ancient tribal assembly
gathered and grounded
like mighty warriors of old.
Now, feeling claustrophobic
the hoodoos surround me
a stone henge courtroom
judge and jury
granite gravels at the ready
to strike judgment.
My path darkens with the fading light
I “will” my feet to carry me away
to escape the impending doom
it wants to chase me down
inside the lengthening shadows.
Hidden by nightfall
I distance myself from
the curse of the hoodoos
and their rock hard grip
and hope for a hoodoo redo
come the morning light.
I'm totally exhausted,
wondering if life is a car exhaust.
Maybe I'm just smoke in motion,
burning dreams for fuel I can't afford.
Or I might be just a windscreen,
only of use when it rains.
People look through me,
but never pause to see the stains.
Often ignored,
like tires only checked on
once I'm worn out—
still I keep rolling.
Even gravel can’t convince me to break.
How many needles and glass
have I endured
to keep the train moving?
Still they wonder why I creak,
why my silence sounds like breaking.
I have chose you
in every turn and curve,
thinking you were my destination
but some maps lie in silence,
and not all roads were meant to arrive.
So reclaim what I have lost:
I'm taking the sharp glass and gravels,
embedding them on my crown.
Let them see every crack I survived
my glory isn’t gold, it’s grit.
Today I’m shamelessly proud
of every journey, ’cause
it showed me new roads.
And every scar sings of motion—
proof I never stayed broken.
Who do you often think of?
Is it God? Or is it man?
Should I think of God?
That is a funny question
Should your problems be of God’s?
Or should your problems be of man’s?
The higher One?
Or the lower one?
You choose
Set your mind straight
Choose one?
Or choose many?
Serve God?
Or serve man?
God can take you far
Man can lead you to a standstill
God does not stumble you
Man will lead you astray
The roads God leads lead to life
Man’s roads full of gravels and consequences
God edifies
Man magnifies
Full of sorrows?
Or full of sun?
Light?
Or darkness?
The narrow way?
Or the high way - your way?
Be of solutions?
Or be of thorns?
God knows
Stories that stood behind soundless shapes;
Silence have finally found its way,
Dressed in a tall sky of towering tendons,
Wishing-wells weeping for wagons,
And as fiends of the forest frame fervent flavors,
Gruesome gravels aching for a touch of dirt from bittersweet barrels,
But one day the festering foe will see ,
what it means to be on scorching knees,
When summer is gone only the snow shall bleed,
A sonnet shaper than the dark Lead you read,
What good are ammos without the gun it fits to,
Perhaps threats are just a view only to sit through,
Salt and pepper beard too seek not for fluffy old warm rugs,
when your floors were far too cold for your own bugs,
You’ve stained the better half of what was meant to be,
Then required a fully functioning me?
There is no room for light in this foggy page full of grief,
For hope is a delicacy garnished for thieves.
The mist of time unravels
As people slam gravels
Making a piece of history disappear
Does it not make you fear
The time of no past is here
You do not like how it was two hundred years ago
So you make a big show
How unfair
Does not anyone care
The past paints an ugly picture of us
So let's all make a fuss
We can make it go away
Now even the past is not here to stay
Not even today
The past is something we earned
Just to watch it burn
Burn every book
Before we can have a look
Yesterday was our education on how things should not be today
We have changed our way
By learning from what we did wrong
Time moves along
You hide the past
The future will not last
Will fade out fast
Our high and our low
Lets people today know
Where not to go
What we was is not who we are
Like most pain we may carry some scar
Let the past be
So people may see
The best way to go
Learn what time has to show
Helps with the onward flow
So our future does not become the past
So all our tomorrows.....
.. will last..
Seasoned and primed for performance.
It draws attraction to feed it's need to
be seen. How different one might
compare. Each difference than
spoken as favored
from such comparison. It's
maintenance and upkeep creates
a jargon for those who wish to follow
and participate. It's dues are allocated
from the works of it's possessor. Those
who have been allowed to be great
from mere ownership.Yond beyond
the edge; the gravels create the road;
it squarks and squeaks from it's lack of
attention, but breezes to carry the load!
Each of one's five fingers wrapped around
the baton to conduct the Muses of people.
Simple for the trained and difficult for the
untrained to fathom. Yet all in attendance
marvel at the spectacle. To applaud
when the fabric of time was torn
the piece of the first stone thrown
turns into a shard of grenade that is born
children create and destroy the universe:
the girl scattered gravels on the floor
count them and sing them
the same old song
of the first and old girl
who gathered stones from the ground
on the beach without water
the boy looks at the world
in his retina is hidden
the equation that explains life
he runs and the planet spins
he screams and the air turns to sea
and the sea becomes agitation
you know, any day these facts
will create the new creation
What an american jeep
The eye-catching size of the jeep
Made my skin creep
And at top speed by heart leap!
A quite intact tank oil wouldn’t from it seep
And glasses one couldn’t through them peep ;
Not a fault wearing such as make drivers weep
And for days deserted by needful sleep.
Always further likeable with a beep,
Its bodyweight that of dense gravels, a heap!
Yep, an automobile God beside Himself could keep.
What an American je...eep!
Gracious green glow garners my garden
God's glorious gifts given to me.
Grand gospels of generosity fill my heart
I enter his golden gates with goodness galore.
Gorgeous gale gushes with grace
Growing my gleaming gazebo of faith.
Glittering grapevine guides my hopes
Gratitude glorifies my gaiety soul.
God's greatness generated in ecstasy
guards galactic gravels with gratuity.
Gems glistening with galloping gaze
gradually gather on glass of prayer.
Gradient of gentle graffiti is my language
gullible gestures greeting with goodwill.
God is my generous guest for eternity.
September 1, 2020
ALLITERATION REGARDING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Beata Agustin
Calming journey present travels
Daunting highways of dirt and gravels
Firebombing businesses and homes unravels
Housewarming rebuilding from grounds battles
~
Coming into life Victorian castles
Crawling toward the scrambles,
Daunting hoards of freemen shackles
Calming are the finish structures panels
2/9/20
Written by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
Forcefully flung fast frolic fountain
from deep core in chasm of mountain,
grey grave gravels to entertain.
Stiff cliff up on high altitude
Water falling in plenitude.
Splattering splintering solitude
Vivacious spirited spring.
Lovely water droplets to sing.
Jingle bells of pebbles to ring
.
Gorgeous fall immense intense
oozes, cascades in opulence
deserving respect reverence.
Ceaseless downpour in joy and spree
sprinkling aqua drops in glee
Lively waterfall dancing free.
SCRAPPING OF SHOVEL
Building construction started adjacent to my residence.
All day long going on random hazardous nuisance.
Crushing machine whirling nonstop piercing eardrum.
Sacks of cement to move, balancing on fulcrum.
Huge heaps of sand have blocked my entrance and main gate.
Flying dust grains attacking nose and throat to irritate.
On dozens of sound I am adjusting my tolerance level.
crossing all limits on scratching gravels while scrapping by shovel.
03/11/19
'May 2019 Premiere 3' Contest by Brian Strand
If it weren't for you
I'd still be scraping the shovels
On land hinged by drought
Digging for achromatic memories
Beneath phlegmatic coarse woody debris
At trackless fields of feelings
In tenacious grip of my fingers
I would be scraping gravels from dessicated plains
Each path winding to you through echor
Would have lost existence
Left untrodden for eons
In limerance of your enigmatic charm
Bolstering labyrinth of emotions
Would have looked down upon
Lacerations on my vulnerable heart
To unearth dormant seed of your presence
To lighten pebbles and dried mud
And moisten it with my tearful soul
09/03/2019
There are times when a man like me
Wants to cry like a child
But for the barren pits of tears and
Crumbling pebbles of bones
Wetting my eyes becomes no lesser task
Than kneading gravels to bake a bread
I've evolved from flesh to stone
A walking statue weathered by life
What more could I do for the little girl
Who looks for food in a heap of garbage
While a skeletal dog barks at her with
Sound of saw on a fallen tree
They declared my blood has sugar in excess
Why then my heart is bitter I wonder
When I see a dead child
Wheeled away to the morgue
Why can't I feel the pain even as I hear
A baby's cry from the maternity ward
Loneliness swallows me tonight
I bend my limbs on the bed
Like a fetus in a womb and I hear a faraway voice
Hushing me through a severed umbilical cord and
I feel the warmth of familiar hands on my cheeks
And my eyelids begin to burn in gentle flames
When I try to cry
Spring startles splashing on rigid rock
oozing from deep chasm of mountain
shakes the coarse crust in terrible shock.
Dazzling dancing delight frolic fountain.
Cascading in vicarious thrill,
spring startles splashing on rigid rock
to exult and to excite still hill
in silken shine thrashing hard to knock.
Pebbles tremble rumble, fail to block
free fall of water in opulence.
Spring startles splashing on rigid rock
with impetus immense intense dense.
Fountain to adorn grey grave gravels.
No mockery: Unlimited stock
of water flow flux flush make marvels.
Spring startles splashing on rigid rock.
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