Scaffolds Poems | Examples

Starless Promise

How can I try for the stars,
When I can't even afford to keep it bright?
How can I chase the moon through iron bars,
When dawn denies me even candlelight?

I dream of rings, of veils, of vows once said,
Yet pockets echo where gold ought to gleam.
The future sleeps on floors I’ve barely tread,
My hands still building scaffolds for a dream.

What gift have I but verses made of thread,
Woven from hopes too fragile to endure?
What altar stands for love the world calls dead,
When bread and rent leave nothing that feels sure?

Yet still, you smile—no coin could match that grace,
A richer man with less could take your place.

Bones

A few articulate with humor and grief,
others are hinged
so that ears can hear each other.

Many bones are scaffolds
for vision, prayer and procreation.

One hollow bone hums in the throat,
it channels the smoky saxophones
of consciousness.

When death comes to nibble holes
into breastplates and ramparts
an osseous honeycomb of memory
forms caves,
cavities for disembodied thoughts.

Mind, of course, has always had
its own immortal bones and marrow,
and so even
the humble bitsy sparrow.

The Bard's Babble

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, Scene I

I weep by a stardust shore where the seraphs sing
Tangerine tears rain despair 'neath a velveteen veil  
My melancholic muse, muslin-wrapped in ice-cold caskets
Slain by ruinous romance swirled in absinthe abstractions

Despondent sloughs bespoke the depths of my soul
Saffron scars scream sonnets through metaphorical mists
Oh, how morose melodies paint scabs over pastiche strophe
Pregnant pause, so precious, submerged in lurid lament

But then it whispered, a voice unvarnished by purple plumes
A verse, it bloomed, untainted by thesaurus bleeds
Sculpting off silken scaffolds pasted upon profligate poetry
Leaving a profounder palate for plainer prosody

Fools thought wisdom speak in sequin-laced soliloquy
But wise men abrades from calligraphic charade

My Duck Friends

For years I’ve seen a pair of ducks
In front of a fountain close by.
They swim or sit and those who notice
Likely wonder why.

The fount’s in the front of a building;
Pedestrians pass night and day
And the street’s filled with traffic and noises,
Which you’d think would just scare them away.

In addition, this year there’s construction,
With drilling and scaffolds and nets.
For some ducks maybe raising a family,
It’s as stressful as city life gets.

Yet this morning, my duck friends were waiting,
As indifferent as creatures can be.
Their return was, to them, nothing special,
But it sure brought some smiles to me.

Ginger waves

.

             Ginger waves
          Preened to glister
         'Long mine frame's
                  Length
              attached by
             lover's sweat

       She peels hern glory
    Almost strand by strand
 From mine scaffolds sheath
                her coy
     cauzing mine innard's
                 pant

If i were painting by numbers
    1  would be her ginger
 gracing mine canvas' mass
    10 would be hern flesh
       blushing with each
   mine deliberate stroke's 
                 press

Swarming Highland

Written: November 06, 2023
            ___________________________________________

A swarm of herring gulls amassed
Nexus Nautilus nabbed by zealous winds,
whitening the black soil
we hold spears in our hands.
blood-stained thorns on the side
sullen squawks a skirmishing sporophyte,
dubious, grayish rumors must be buried
drave in a drizzle, drape to deities.

Installation of sentry fences
Sisyphean stones
anchor down using seal and string
flaws in the swings used by blacksmiths
Unborn burning bullion bludgeon
Savage sunless swords embryonic
Edgeless, with no reflections.

Each peak over the Edenic Steppes is sprayed,
using torn paper candles as bait
climbing scaffolds with lumber rungs
pounding of leather-heavy boots
darkened, grimacing features
Flocks failing feathers or flight.

Our hold slips on windswept
Windswept updrafts carry us away
as offspring of the royal family.

Michelangelos Dome

Michelangelo was seventy-one years young
when he began designing St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican’s Dome
Lying on scaffolds for hours a day, it was a labor of love
His final hurrah, a worthwhile sacrifice,

Millions of visitors have marveled at his works.
Each streak of paint was an experienced stroke of a master painter.
Michelangelo, the quintessential designer, working for hours
Bravo! He has left us the ultimate artistic masterpiece.

Dem Bones

Some float,
move on the diameter of a whim.
A few articulate between joy and grief,
others are hinged
so that ears can hear each other.

Most are scaffolds.
One hollow bone hums in the throat,
it channels the smoky music
of sub-conscious saxophones.

A few are honeycombed for memory
and procreation.
One is a cave for old mind-muddles,
it has a window view.

All the others
are flesh garbed trombones
that slide in and out
to unlock our whoopee cushions
with their skeleton keys.
© a day ago

Cemetery Moans and Groans

Purple bats and evil cats and strangled ghosts that laugh 
jet black cloaks, snickering blokes and witches that gaff 

Pumpkin grins, talking garbage bins and all that moves 
Halloween rhymes and pentacle signs with evil grooves 

Children running from the shadows towards the gallows 
skeleton molds on scaffolds, and specters in the shallow 

Phantoms and demons, bogey men with haunting looks 
talisman, walking totems, demon hags with spell books 

Haunted houses, mummy spouses and imps that steal  
cemetery moans and groans, stiffs that oink & squeal  

BETTER HURRY ON HOME BEFORE YOU BECOME THE NEXT MEAL

Bone-Meals

Bones and their ash remain,
retain and nourish
the under-croft, the terrain.
The meadow green.
Bones replant.

The dead feed the living,
and the living cut down the living
to feed themselves.
The world must eat itself.
This is called husbandry and farming.
It is also called shopping and carrying,
killing, and butchery.
Those that eat only vegetables
also partake.

A grave is a half-way house,
Urns are waiting rooms.
The soil nurses bones,
worms wheel the earth towards the sky
for its blessing.
Osseous clouds seed nations.

What follows bone and bone ash
becomes the crop,
the tomorrow-cart laden
with its bone harvest.
Bone-flowers scent the air.

Bones underpin bridges and wingspans,
citadels of stone.
Bone dust scaffolds every stem and branch.

Bones in tombs and catacombs
are food for the larder.
A storage for generations.

Stars shed their elemental dust,
becoming bone fodder.
Bone ash is the genesis
of all unknown beginnings.

Bones

Some are free floating
they can move on the diameter of a whim.
A few articulate with humor and grief,
others are hinged
so that ears can hear each other.

Many bones are scaffolds
for vision, prayer and procreation.

One hollow bone hums in the throat,
it channels the smoky saxophones
of the mind.

When death comes to nibble holes
into breastplates and ramparts
perhaps an osseous honeycomb of memory 
will form caves
for disembodied thoughts

and just maybe 
we will still be there,
to think them
as ghosts in some immortal marrow.

Quietly Sleeping Embers

Quietly Sleeping Embers

the materials of timeless elements
that once laid deep within the earth,
as sleeping embers in a quiet fire,
or the thumping of rocks, their throaty shouts,

attracted to the source, protean, 
the standard of all things apocryphally edged,
eyes in search of themselves, flashing
visions in search of hallucinations, sighing.

lateral unitities scrape the tattered and
the buttressed scaffolds in dimension,
as a formican stave appears sage-like, alone
at it’s cusp, pointing towards inevitability. 

our hands are lined with our history, concealed,
our hearts deeply gouged, bleed coloradan stain,
whimper as they will, feeble outcomes fail
the test, it’s standards not presently contained.

the harbinger of listless souls, tearless
and gut-wrenched, gesticulating, wordless,
those materials, that source of satiety trembles,
those quietly sleeping embers, light even the world.

This City Is Our Land

The cities buildings get taller and taller
City apartments get smaller and smaller

Steel legs and arms make monsters named scaffolds
Destroying the dated to build up new rentals

What once was five floors has now become ten
How long will this take or never will this end

Before I was woken by the singing of sparrows
Now vulgarity from a nasty young fellow

Giant green dumpsters line our streets
With rusty stoves and sinks that once leaked

My neighbors now scattered amongst the rats
Pushed out by investors who hold guns to our bats

Mother father sisters and bothers 
Our city has-fallen in the hands of the others

Brace one another hold tight your hands
Always remember this city is our land

Mind the Paint

Mind the Paint


Oh, to paint the inside of the egg
restyle the matted gray of sunless gloom
splash color on the curtains that belie
soft filtered light through windows of the soul.
Scaffolds to paint the Sistine of the Dome
brushstrokes to taunt the essence of our thought
teasing the tortured remnants of dreams lost
rainbows - revelations of a Master’s touch.

Creation’s palette in fetal fingered grasp
a water colored future dab by dab
a valiant streak of orange in the blue
the glowing red of life’s untarnished thrill.

Wild dance, cerebral choreography,
brushless art upon the eyelids of sleep.



©3/7/2018

submitted to – Mind the wet paint – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Viv Wigley

Roots

My roots are strong stemming from bridges and scaffolds that embody the strength of a spirit Gracefully swaying in the wind
Dancing to a tune
Adjusted tempo to a rise and fall 
I move to the beat 
Battered and bruised 
Soles of my feet
Walked a thousand miles to stare at defeat
Gazing passed moving forward on this concrete
Lightning speed on this track
I twirl till I'm dizzy
Mind on rewind gyrating differently
Masquerading within realism 
Beats from a bongo 
Dancing to this mambo 
My heart races to chance 
So I dance 
All night 
Till I see the sunlight

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