Long Trowel Poems

Prelude to what…..

I see you,  /  you / yes, come into my…… 
laboratory of alchemist mystical languaging.
where arsenic spills into the whirlpool of thought 
and savage syntax shatter like glass on concrete.

Where Titans...

Read More

My dad is a brick mason and so were my 2 grandfathers so it’s easy to say I would 
know a thing or two about laying brick. It has surely come in handy a few...

Read More

as if Monet had planted water lilies in Babylon

          hanging gardens at the heart of a canvas of joy

       ...

Read More

Grrrr WOMEN they drive me mad!


We were due to go on holiday
My wife said she was on her way
I’d got the car engine running 
I waited
and waited
and waited



But my wife Marcie was on the phone...

Read More

Inside my mailbox late last month; nine packs of seeds - a mystery!
I hadn't ordered anything, but curious was I to see
what might become of planting them. So grabbing trowel, hoe, and rake,
I set about...

Read More

Over ten worms then? In coats. Goggles? Flight then. Huge paper bees. Altitude 4 on curvatures rattling over the field,fauna and hedgerows. Boom boom boom beasts coming. Mooooving across the territory pulling dragging. When old...

Read More

Grook

He who believes the world will end by fire,
global warming and rising waters will prove a liar.


Honest Anthropologist

From his peers came a howl
when a famous anthropologist
confessed: “After years of digging
for the link that’s missing
I’ve concluded...

Read More

Those seeds you plant are positively primitive, almost nothing at all. You can eat them from the palm of your soulful hand. You can look at them, greedily hide them - close them up in...

Read More

He drove the trowel point first into the open bag of diatomaceous earth
pulled it up full and dumped it into the black paint can
after a few mixing stirs he did it again
Soon he had a...

Read More

Over the years
some were carefully carried
tied up in tiny bundles
held tight against the heart

While the other
more awkward ones
were pulled behind in a cart
like so many precious parcels
taken along for the ride

But a few fell
and rolled...

Read More

Mommy, I know I left you here.

Ring ring went the phone,

Little did we know never again would I answer

Ring ring went the phone.

 

I was eating breakfast when

Open slammed the door,

That morning how strongly I...

Read More

Oh baneful yellow Moon in fullest rounded sphere,
Bright as Summers Buttercups in abundant yield,
Coldly riveted upon Winters beaten, thin silvered panels;
Thereof: By ye mighty hammer doth great thoth wield!

For what fearful trowel gouged out thine...

Read More

*Image of Loving One More by NS.

A Second Please

Aesthete equip upkeep spade, trowel, and watering pail,
Balters out freely, gagging unwantable, grit travail,
Chrysalism advents the righteous eyes and elaborates,
Dulcet forgivings a moment's lapse and recuperates,
Euphoria occasions...

Read More

my garden in a Spanish town
is overgrown with weeds
due to lack of time and purpose
one thing that grows is beautiful lemons
too many to make lemonade
for me and my wife

when life overburdens 
motivation is lacking and...

Read More

the trowel back pushed   fresh tempered mortar
 lifted to scoop the hard cream wave
Shook  to anchor the load
Then slid across the back edge of the growing wall
His reach stilled as he raised...

Read More

Your words lance through to bone, acid sizzling into every hole
I haven't filled in, yet I dig, and ponder, and dig, filling in.

I still rock where the echoes of door slammed shut, bounce around
like a...

Read More

We were shaped and fashioned as true saviors of peace,
Endorsed to spread honor and knock the enemy off his feet,
So, I raised my right hand, before God and before man,
To defend our constitution on water...

Read More

Always messing up
When I feel so upset
Going all in way too hard
To lose another stupid bet

Losing all my hard earned money
Yet again I am robbed blind
At this point it’s all quite funny
I have no more...

Read More

Quietly now, 
my serenading sky 
you to me are!
almost radiant and high, facing the light
be about your plants of green 
your strewn paths and needles
let rays tend the weeds that harbour gainst your hand 
and...

Read More

As we ate on the 33rd floor

" his eyes shifted "

" the feather lifted "

and I knew once more

" ten keys "

are his way to a door...

" my trowel "

is for Phi!

and the measure

of my...

Read More

Modeled by the     skilled and clumsy hands
of artists and artisans into an ideal state of she-ness,
a penniless waif appears      on a stool

last week a stranger called...

Read More

Mingling multiplying minnows marvel masterfully and jaded hooded jalapenos race to the scene. For a pretty fortress is unveiled to a mass highway injection. In a timed spring curve heap hats. In a basting tree...

Read More

Not even an answer

Not even an Answer,
Just one single hard lesson.
One that must have been watching me all day long. 
Waiting, there in the shadows
While I picked up rocks in the corrals,
or maybe when I...

Read More

The nucleus of a pin cushion is akin to the internal mechanisms of a sausage. A big massive drama but don't tell Dalai Lamar and the turtle doves will sing and swing in the breeze....

Read More

Sunlight entered the aquamarine potting shed from the east
Beating the master gardener by a few minutes or steps
Ruffled marigold seeds were waiting to be planted in seedling trays
It was March the fifteenth, an opportune time...

Read More