Scrape away, at a life. You just weren’t given any real instructions –
so, you scrape like a carpenter
at grey washed walls, wanting
to peel off old paint – old memories,
in your head you scrap away
the talk back – that little
squirrel inside the trunk of your head
it scrapes.
You scrape and scream, you scrape and
feel the muscle of your right hand
figure the page into
something. You scrape
days and trash them. Who
will find them? Who cares that you scrape
while in labor? scrape every morning you wake –
scrape on body, scrape on heart, scrape on this
bloody life
until you just can’t scrape –
as long as I see the sky ~ all life’s protected by an ozone ply
Mediocrity, Excellence two shores
Waves of Efforts connecting shores
Surf on tide, swim against flow of ocean
Be ashore leveraging art of propulsion
Mediocrity, a reality, almost repulsive
Excellence, a rarity, almost elusive
Race of Excellence, making man a rat
Each gnawing at other to breast the tape
Peaks exist because of bottom layers
Underneath layers vital for peak to be there
Peak below feet, mark of Excellence pursuit
Feet dragging at layers, a mediocre feat
Peak and layer, complementary pair
Live with conviction, dash of dare
Peak accommodates just few
If at layer, gear up, stir up, be amongst few
-----------------------------------------------------------------
© Dr Hitendra Mehta
A LITTLE LAYER
OF HAPPINESS
IT'S SOMETIMES LIKE
A CAKE WITHIN
IT ALWAYS BEARS
A MOLD
WITHOUT IT LEAVES
YOU QUIET
WITH WISHES
FROM CARES
YOU HOLD
A LAYER
OF FROSTING
OF LIFE
A SLICE OF LOVE
AND CHEER
A HEART THAT KNOWS
EACH DAY TO TRUST
AWAY FROM THE
KNIVES OF FEAR
A LITTLE LAYER
OF HAPPINESS
IT'S LIKE A MOUTH
THAT FEEDS
AND WITH EACH
OPENING
A TRUE REPOSE
IT MEETS US
IN OUR NEEDS
A LITTLE LAYER
OF HAPPINESS
OF A HEART
THAT HOLDS
IT'S OWN
SO LIKE A CAKE
THAT WE CAN
TAKE
IT NEEDS A HEART
A HAPPY HOME
A LITTLE LAYER
OF HAPPINESS
LIKE A CAKE
FROM THE MOLD I
IT STANDS
NOT TO BE MISSED
IT CAN BE KISSED
WITH HEARTS
AND HELPING
HANDs
SO BE A
HEALTHY EATER
OF DREAMS
OF HOPES
WITH PLANS
LET A LITTLE LAYER
OF HAPPINESS
BE THE RECIPE
OF 'HOWS' AND
'CANS'
AND SET ASIDE
THE MYSTERY
OF MIXES
THE MAKERS
CHOOSE
JUST TAKE
A BITE OF
HAPPINESS
THAT YOU
NEVER
COULD
OR
SHOULD
REFUSE
ALEX E. NELSON
FOR B-
JANUARY
2015
the skin says it all
it's disorder
white sheet - dirty spot
irritation of inconvenient tissues
discomfort from peeling off rough things
the sweet scent that drives away
or icy sound of unwanted voices
what overlaps everything
this extra layer
another mountain to climb
I preferred the blindness of phones
just your beta voice for my alpha voice
I don't expect the resurrection of smiles
I don't think I'll ever hear these verbs again
now my scapular is made of bones
and if everyone is packing their bags
it's because paradise comes one day
Beautiful things encapture me,
As though I am within glass,
Ice blue eyes,
A weakness of mine,
The way he smiles,
Another layer of glass,
I should not feel such things,
Blurred behind so many layers,
Isolated by such a man,
Taken so abruptly,
Only to be cast away just as fast,
Another layer of glass between us,
A beautiful thing I must lay to rest,
My heart was yours,
But never would yours be mine,
Cast away such a fruitless venture,
Enraptured by your beauty,
Yet ultimately rejected by your hideousness,
Things that lie beneath that glass,
The ugly truth of love and lust,
Lust is what you feel strongest,
Love is what I aspire for,
Glass it blurs, confines,
Ultimately I was blinded by you,
Your beauty ending just below your skin,
Such a marvelous disaster we were,
Now, we must part ways,
Glass walls surrounding us both,
To blur such things once again
The poet begins the reading
'I'm sentimental if you know what I mean.'
'Oh, that's good!'
I thought about this cuckoo hissing
At the Botanical Gardens
He'd also mediated on the stratosphere
That sponge up above
Accordingly, so did I too
Footslogging around the museum
I took a sufti at my phone by the toilets
A headline caught my attention
Liverpool to sack Jürgen Koop
Kooped up in this nightmare exhibition
We came across a giant redwood
The trunk constructed out of metal
To enlighten the children
To prepare them for the future
My son explains his steam engine
A whole troupe of burly men
Black soot and freezing cold snow
Three layers of woollen jumpers
Sod the blast pipe carbon dioxide
Your Austrian Giesl burp
There are bigger concerns
Than soil degradation
Yes, the fireman is wearing clothes
The shoveller is wearing clothes
But the driver is naked
Big Job
There's a big job breaking out
Time for smelling salts and focus
There is no magic wand this time
No top-hat hocus pocus
Time to wheel out heavy gear
Flex our muscles and get busy
Pick ourselves a loyal team
With dreams so high they're dizzy
There's a big job breaking out
And it's clear we need to fix this
Sticking plasters just won't do
For this world defining crisis
Labourers to garden,
Experts in their field
Anyone who cares enough
To bring this crop to yield
Shoulder to the grindstone
Knuckles cracked and ready
Wrestle with the challenges
And climb to heights so heady
Engineers and carpenters
Housewives, teachers, leaders
No time to waste. No shirking off.
Ask everyone to heed us
There's a big job breaking out
Blue lights are flashing by
Too much plastic in the ocean
No more ozone in the sky..
We need healers for creation
For neglecting all our duty
The reflection may be ugly
So it's time to bring back beauty
Jinjagoliath
10th February 2021
The Layer Cake
We are a skewed birthday cake,
generations of lopsided layers
baked badly by ancestors
of fervent but defective intent,
teetering atop the stale and dried out.
The layers descend into the past,
inedible and mostly forgotten
while we the temporary top deny
bad ingredients and tiltings
and frosting with crème cruel.
We concoct the next tier
with hope and even love
but use a cookbook specifying
flour of custom and bias
and spices of mistakes.
It is a mighty wonder
that the cake still stacks
and those just set in place
don’t slide off to extinction
on the icing of our failings.
north-west wind bitter
fresh layer of snow on ground
seeking warm shelter
Embedded beneath the subconscious layer,
when the nascent eyes open to the first light
as mortal journey begins with nothing in sight,
the call waits with ordained words, ‘come here’.
The call lies dormant and unheard deep within,
as the murmuring stream of life flows slowly by,
the cacophony of time mounts on the pitch high,
the words lurk behind the music of mind serene.
The inescapable echo of the call would articulate,
when at timed appointment with destiny fearsome
the clock is coded to stop, would finally come
with the call ‘come’ that would silently resonate.
When all sounds would dissolve in silence at sunset,
the toiled eyes would close on the seraphic light,
turning into the lighthouse beacon shining bright,
the caller would finally beckon at the end of wait.
Another ethereal journey would then begin forlorn
for the soul to merge with the entity, the ultimate,
to be transformed into the eternal blissful state
in the sublime realm of euphoria, yet unknown.
Written : August 17, 2019
May 25, 2020
Contest : Brian's Choice T
Sponsor : Brian Strand
"APOCALYPSE!"
We are slowly but surely leaning towards the final hour
though it feels more like a hoax,
It is upon us.
The subliminal signs in the sky heralding the days,
lurking stealthily for its prey...
we wont see it, we wont heart it and
it will strike whilst we slumber or is it?
All will run for cover ,
But it will be too late!
another layer of flesh
another
layer
of
flesh
just keep
looking into
the greenery
part ing my eyes
you will see past
another layer
of
flesh
tested
?
Father’s love is overflowing
in this land of forgotten sorrow
He offers bottom layer of love
Top layer he says are infectious
Markets can suffer with them
For his offspring he prepares
A layer of grits, soot and dirt
At bottom of saucepan he gives
To him they fatten his children
Healthy shining children he wants
He’s amused with balloon cheeks
Happy with hanging bellies
Celebrates malnourished limbs
And clothes colonized by lice
Its colony signifies future riches
But when one shouts complains
He prepares homily to preach
To convert them to his head
I am a spirit
I shatter the dis-ambience of the country
with a flick of my fingers
a stone dashes for a ridge
with a tender tickle
trees rattle their drum branches
with the tip of my pinkie
I raise a rainbow to its potential
with the grasp of my hand
a tornado chews up cows
the length of my limbs
hurls waves towards their certain demise
my breath gives a sigh
to the wearied sheep dog
luxuriating atop a fenced-in hill
I was human once.
Do I perpetuate nature
out of resentment
or from kindness
It’s sure I’m invisible
but you’ll feel me
as hail strikes your bare neck
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