ROSE BLACK
Passing here
I chanced a rose
Sadly stilled
Her will to grow
Her petals feared
The touch of those
Who wanted more
Than She could show
She shunned the Sun
Bowed Her head
Her thorns warned
A scratch of red
She'd not be sheared
For bouquets thrown
Braided wreaths
The honored dead
She wanted life
As She so chose
To love and grieve
Black
As a rose
They cut the grid
into the mountain,
breathing a poisonous cloud.
A frantic chaos,
Staking a fortune from
beneath the eucalypt,
pulling hollow bones
they did not heed.
They bet on success,
Assuming the heavy,
damp silence of the bush
was a kind of surrender.
But destiny ignores a frantic hand.
It woke not as a tremor,
but a shift.
A slow drag against the iron.
The ancient roots waking
their weight,
a deep,
fluid groan rising
through fragile ground.
And then—
the inescapable alignment.
The ancient land would seal their fate.
The land sheared
like a severed cord,
swallowing their plans
into the dark earth.
Within the bruised shadows
of the collapse,
the twisted steel rests.
An eerie monument to fortune lost.
the earth does not negotiate with fortune.
It simply folds the chaos down,
and settles back into peace.
#1
The key to
under-
standing John's mum-
bling babble is to
work blathering with
all known grum-
bling scum-
bags in the
area.
#2
Sheer junky
blonde men's
sons are
shared by
sheared shaken ju-
ries hunk-
ered down for
now in a
herky beef hus-
band's jerky her-
esy chamber or
dry cell assault and
battery cage.
While we wait.
Late October, it has been raining; now it has stopped
The landscape is green, the air mild and gentle
But there is no jubilation.
No flowers grow.
The seed in the earth slumbers.
The mules in the field look pensive and sad. They are
of no use anymore, the farmer keeps them because they
make the landscape more rustic.
Whoever loved a tractor, even if painted blue?
The harvest of this year is done
Sheep have been sheared and look exposed
grazing under olive trees
I can see it in the eyes of all living things: Melancholy
for the future to come.
Will we be here next year?
A stranger among reams of proposals
the original thought bided its time
Counting sheep while very much awake
the sheep eventually sheared
As the thought turned inward
not the least bit frantic
In search of meaning
where none might be found
A fallow season, a time of trivial hungers.
Scissoring illuminations sheared his eyes.
Petulant lips pursed.
He laid himself down, yet again
covered himself over with a bone deep hurt.
Light cut and snipped
at the tangled hairs of a grey despair,
it swung him open
until a self-interned corpse flickered awake
in the pale eyes of cave bats
No longer were stone angel's graveyard attendants,
the world unboxed itself, he had been doornail dead,
now a gateway swung wide.
Was this life, or was this death by light?
Snails had left silver poems
on that part of his mind, he had yet to find,
yet it was near enough to dream of.
Special Report
Extra Extra
Read all about it
Here and now
“LIGHTNING STRIKES JETLINER SULFERLY”
The Jetliner was flying through a violent storm
This is the norm at times
The Jetliner originated from Los Angeles enroute to Chicago
A fierce lightning bolt sheared through the side of the air craft
The captain managed to maneuver the air craft
However, there was some damage
All the passengers were shaken up
Some were insured during the ordeal
The captain radioed the nearest airport
It was Dallas-Fort Worth Airport
The captain wanted to make an emergency landing
The Dallas-Fort Worth Control Tower told the captain that the runway was all clear for his descend
The Medical and Emergency team quickly went to runway 5 for the air craft
The captain had the Jetliner wheels down and turned towards Dallas-Fort Worth
The plane landed safe
Some of the passengers were taken to nearby hospitals
While others refused medical attention
Lightning bolt impact damage
Luckily no deaths were reported and everyone survived
Survival chapter
thoughts turn
jumbled threads
the scissors snap
the thorns and thistles sheared
unwind
Lonely is the one who only ever follows
Cursed is the one who chooses his own path.
For neither ever will be truly satisfied.
A problem such as this
Doesn’t seem to exist for a sheep.
Even on a cliff’s edge,
A sheep is neither hurt nor dead.
Perhaps only weighed down by his own coat.
Perhaps that is not only his predicament.
But is the case for all those around him.
Vision obscured by his own wool.
If he cannot see, why should the world around him matter?
He is the center of the herd.
Never a leader but never last.
However, a day will come
When time has passed
His life will be nearing the end of its rope.
He will be old and without hope.
And he will wonder why he never just sheared his head.
But, he is only a sheep on a cliff’s edge.
These problems don’t exist.
Sheep don’t have to take risks.
They stay in a herd
With a shepherd in tow
They will never know what lies off the path
Or a hundred feet below.
She once bestowed shade
on blistering hot days
Now exposed all around her
is human flesh to sun’s rays
She was a playground for squirrels
where they leaped and they twirled
in the merriest of chases
like a day at the races
But sad to say, nature comes last
when ‘progress’ is fast
‘Redevelopment’ came along
sang its familiar cruel song
Sheared off her boughs
turned her trunk to sawdust
Now fallen and humbled her stump sits
conservation having called it quits
The place you left, it’s shrouded with leaves now
Hasn’t got a touch of my skin since
For my heart, it never did allow
Turned many times, in case you mirrored
Found it lonely, just like I feared
And it’s been ages, soon will be a memorial
But who remembers things that in a week got sheared
‘I do', said my core
Thus swept away, far from shore
Mud covered the unhealed
Silt made it strong, like a rock peel
Still a question lingers…
My dear, was I right when I thought you did feel?
Take a battering ram to the other side
The recoil will do me harm
A knife and spoon will suffice
Break the gates violently with arms
It will seal itself again and entice
It will swallow my body with charms
It will spit me out again with vices
Put down that aching piece of log
Give these hands other than a mace
They are meant for more than war
Give it a last heave-ho just to tease
Grab any pen knife, make a scar
Whittle that mad log to a canoe
Each shaving an ordinary day
Look not upon the door with lust
Hop in the dugout after years of fray
The current takes me to the other side
Break through the door every May
But I hold onto that old log that died
The door on the river never sways
My citadel’s veil unbreached cries
It’s hard to face the day without a ram
Shave off my horns to be a lamb
My shepherd beckons on His raft
Lift me up from muddy waters damp
Onto my battering ram lashed
Break on through the other side
Day to day may I be washed
Hour to hour may hopes be dashed
The gate is straight ahead
Let go of the ram for good
Kindly cut the door with scissors
Only sheared lambs enter
.
and
that's whut
it
would sound like
i
the sheep
sheared
There was a man who was quite weird
With a chunk sticking from his beard
So I helped myself
And pulled out an elf
Which wasn’t as bad as I feared
But when we thought that his strange beard
Was in fact totally cleared
Ten kangaroos
Jumped out too
Which made all the townspeople cheer
That’s when a brave man volunteered
To reach one last time in his beard
When out did leap
A flock of sheep
And at least two of them were sheared
At last nothing else appeared
From his extraordinary beard
But we were, I declare
Sucked into his hair
And the town and I all disappeared
Rain
water droplets
fall saturated liquid water
precipitation cloud field scorched
sheared torrid dehydrated
Dryer.period
drought
12.9/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2023
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