Natural things are rarely smooth
or flawless as they appear on the surface
Smooth fur on skin and curve on wing
are rough and jagged underneath
Push back against the grain shows true texture within
reveals bristling hairs and quill barbs of feathers
It's the grit within that shapes us
A pearl is smooth but inside is a seed of grit
We need the bumps knurls and gnarls to grip and hold
Slick things slip through silky wet and wanton fingers
Most natural things are rough at birth
Stones and gold nuggets are fractured rough at source
They're smoothed by wear and tear of sand rubbing in streams
Babies are smooth at birth but age roughens them
Humans grind away all day at nature's roughness
seeking perfection in shiny smooth and faultless
Blissfully they're unaware that
it's the faults flaws texture and roughness within
that glistens shiny the pearl
It's the bumps and gnarls outside that knurls the grip
Categories:
grind away, angst, anxiety, environment, growth,
Form: Free verse
Grace can't grind away the wrinkled gnarls time obeyed,
Nor hide the snarls, ploughed as furrows in the brow.
It carves the knurls for grip that age has disobeyed,
To a shape what decrepit, flailing lovers can still avow.
Grace respects the knurled design that time has hewn,
That's not a flaw, nor fault, but a form that time engraves.
With old branches twisted, scarred, gone too far to prune,
Grace hugs the bumps and twists that life well-spent saves.
It's the gnarls of age that knurls the grip to rage
Against the blight of the coming of the night,
Despite the cranky snarls that ring on anvil swage,
As loved ones bare the brunt of frail days plight.
So let the gnarls knurl the grooves to grip tight.
To fight and rage against the fading of the light.
Categories:
grind away, age,
Form: Sonnet
Moments fly off and leave a trail
behind you like dust clouds.
Most settle somewhere
in the forgotten, become irretrievable,
no longer connected to your life.
Some survive and accumulate
on the sticky frame of what holds
you together, particles which,
by themselves, mean nothing,
but in number become the narrative
of your past.
Some find their way here,
arguing significance, others
bubble up as if defying gravity,
free of purpose, life's loose coin.
You spend much of your time
sorting through the odd collection,
arranging into orders
of magnitude, of pain, or joy
or how much they've shaped
who you are.
In the quiet still of evenings
when you are alone,
they seem to reanimate
and gorge like aphids
on the branches of your life.
Sleep is no refuge. They come back
in dreams dressed in different guises,
playing out the variations on a secret
fear or grind away trying to resolve
something you left
incomplete last week
or a lifetime ago. Each morning
as you come to, they rush in
to reassemble you, adding more,
and at the same time,
letting a little more of you go.
Categories:
grind away, self, time,
Form: Free verse
AFRICA IS NOT YOUR LAB
Monumental carcasses impended: Africa is not a lab,
A pinch of your pin is worse than knife stab -
Reducing a people you didn't create,
Solution is your cunning bait
But your weapon is merciless hate.
The stains on your lab coat is deceit,
Your agenda and past records you can't delete.
Ply your experiments in this evil's - smithy,
Poisoned-chalice to heal sounds pretty?
Not fitting. Your vaccine is the assassin;
Medicine from Tennessee tested on the Edisons
Might not be antidote in Benin for the Bensons.
Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses too surmount enemies
And so will we cos Africa is not a lab place.
Grind away! Moistenly mash up your paste,
Abort the mission to lay Africa waste.
We'll chew kola at your tricks - we're not in haste!
Not in haste to dine with ancestors & kings,
We'll dance to batá, gongon, base guitar & strings
While our liberty & redemption comes in a collabo.
Africa is definitely not your labo!
Vick Manuel Poetry {VMP}
Copyright © December, 2020.
Categories:
grind away, 1st grade, africa, america,
Form: Rhyme
Adam, of scripture, dug our graves for it.
The advertiser’s magic guaranties it.
Fathers grind away their lives for it.
Religions point the way toward it.
The flail for it forms character.
The Poets labor to convey it.
Music seeks to express it.
Mothers simply feel it.
Love’s serenity and ageless value.
Categories:
grind away, culture, how i feel,
Form: Free verse
Don't come for me, until you see that Me
Nobody knows where anger grows wild.
Child, I've been there fearing the dawn
Thinking the demons won my soul,
Let it be told I was the hopeless
Copeless, reckless expecting less.
Time cannot grind away the webs
Hanging hapless threatening to strangle
The swinging dangle of Me.
Don't come for Me...Child until I die.
Don't cry dry tears you knew
The fears, you were too near
Dear not to hear my wretched soul.
Don't come for Me dismissed
With a kiss, I can't risk the diss
Stance of dancing pain.
Don't EVER come for that Me
You swore you didn't see beyond,
No pun intended as fun.
My laughing to tears were fears of your coming
For Me was never my destiny.
I was blind, now I see
Your coming, humming your poison
Don't come for Me.
Categories:
grind away, break up, conflict, culture,
Form: Blank verse
Oh sweet bride to be
as the flowers bloom
you snuck to my room
in hopes of a lustful spoon
Groom anxiously awaits
as your father opens the front gates
No one will comprehend our fate
Face to face we engage
Stockings, undergarments and satin lace
on the floor they lay
We embrace and grind away
Categories:
grind away, beautiful, betrayal, engagement, funny
Form: Prose Poetry
I have been on Earth
for twenty years
I've been through joy
I've shed my tears
felt every emotion
that comes to mind
but still I've never felt freedom.
I could break my back
to pay my bills
but I'll nonetheless
owe money still
I grind away
and carry on
in hopes freedom is nearing.
A free man walks
with his conscious clear
and his heart absent
of regret and fear
he stands up tall
so bold and poised
because the world sees him as equal.
While the free man struts
with glee and pride
A man like me walks
with a painful stride
his legs feel dead
his shoulders ache
from the weight of a world that scorns him.
He waits his turn
to feel freedom's grace
but before it shows
he comes face-to-face
with a frigid wind
and brilliant light
because on Earth, he's no longer welcome.
He had been on Earth
for sixty years
he'd been through joy
he'd shed his tears
felt every emotion
that comes to mind
but still he never felt freedom.
Categories:
grind away, angst, dark, freedom, pain,
Form: Rhyme
I’ve been pumping the handle but it’s spitting out dust.
I grind away my eraser until the ferrule rips the empty page.
In the back of my mind, fragments pile up in a heap of worthless used parts.
Running my hand across every rough surface, every smooth groove, feeling every bump and every gorgeous imperfection; but my heart shrinks like leather in the sun, pulling taut my right hand, rendering it inarticulate. How does a doubter pray for rain?
Categories:
grind away, angst, writing,
Form: Free verse
Under mountains of coal and ash
two, cold, porcelain figurines withstand
the years, as they grind away slowly
their lines and composition turning
to dust.
I was the culprit, tearing down the
house you built, now a stranger to the
pillars of your sunlight laughter
Embarrassed I bow with only a huge
gap I created...lifeless with no
interiors… only regret.
I knew you when there was only a small
one bedroom apartment…no monuments
to your name…when you were nervous
and alone. I loved you with my blinded
heart, at risk with too many intimate scars…
and now with memories and
no words ever spoken.
© Julia Heckman 2011
Categories:
grind away, love,
Form: Free verse
In my quest of life sublime
I face a mountain I must climb
There dwells up inside of me
A growing amount of hostility
My anger is growing day by day
Regardless of the prayers I pray
Like two grinding tectonic plates
One is love and the other is hate
As the plates slowly grind away
Price of hate my love must pay
Like a beautiful exotic dance
Hate is held in dark romance
Like a lone mountain flower
Love shall hold mystic power
The two sides of a single face
Only one can rule this place
Off to hell fallen angels go
Is this the fate of my soul?
Is the meaning of this rhyme?
Bound by the hands of time
For all to hear and all to see
Love and hate each dwell in me
Love and hate each have their goal
I wonder, which shall win my soul
Categories:
grind away, angst, confusion, introspection, life,
Form: Couplet