Shears Poems

toenail clippers wont do my nails

toe nail clipper? she asks. I laugh and scoff.
It’ll take a jackhammer to get these nails off.
They are thick, gristly, harder than a screw.
What about sheep shears? Asks my cousin Lou.

She does not have nails like these wretched claws.
I change the batteries in both of my chainsaws
It has to be done, all my socks have gigantic holes.
I reach for the first chainsaw whose battery glows.

- The Tears Of The Roses -

    The rose
    Strength and grace
    defines the woman
    Interwoven in
    the tapestry of femininity
    Goddess of the night
    accorded reverence
    without seeming authoritarian
    Even a parsley leaf 
    appreciative nod

    Pristine petals
    reflected in
    shard of glass in the ivory tower
    As icing in the teeth
    the hedge shears are revealed
    Saga night that conveys emotions
    A testimony of a rose
    Drizzle
    in a fold on the lace
    Sharpened diamond tears
    - silent messengers

Any Moment Now, It Will Come

The angel works the tollbooth
Exclaiming commands for change
They are a barber on the side
with faded tattoo arms
Holding shears made of fire
coated in silent pious rage
Hiding blood in their thermos
Waiting for a Judgement day

Crown of Crows

Soiled sinners lecturing on the art of being pristine.
Innocents retreats to black pits and dank seams 
God tucked away the ivory ring and red lantern
very few are rescued from the darkness within.

The good sheep are hoarding gospel and fear
charlatan and sharks are circling with shears.
Talking heads in it for ratings and attention
Town criers race baiting for a vote once again.
Millions gorging on fish and blue-collar greens
but very few do the sowing and reeling them in.

The horizon is deeply rouged and roughened
nobody caring enough to balm it or buff it.
Bloated children are crying out once again
cupboard and pantry are running very thin. 
There's no lullaby nor nursey rhymes left
So, one day they just decided to snuff them.

Black crows preening atop a thorny crown
the curtain of humanity came crashing down.
Somewhere deep in the soul of a dead-end night 
heaven was nailed to a neon, no vacancy sign
Saint Peter packed up without saying goodbye.

katabasis

Euridice, Euridice
daughter of mortals, sworn to divine;
the bell tolls, the bell rings
“I’m sorry, I miss you”
Orpheus turns;  Euridice.

the unmade sheets, dog-eared pages 
stacked, dishes scattered in the sink
sunlight splashes 
I close my eyes
I see the ghost of where you’ve been

how long has it been
since the summer of your smile, 
the spring of your voice.
twenty years waiting, your Penelope;
a shroud unwoven by time

tick, tick, tick. the clock continually ticks.
it drags me by the hands, 
grabs me by the heart.
every grain falling through the hourglass,
a lifetime I once spent with you.

every word I never said,
a pomegranate never split;
I called your name too late.
Melpomene, my very own muse,
hear the swan song of my heart 

three words we never got to say
i love you i love you i love you
i turn to you to confess
(don’t look don’t look don’t look)
and there you are. you’re gone.

we were two sides of the same fate, 
 half of each other; star-crossed, but
snip. your shears split the weave and.
Fates themselves can’t force supernovas 
to align / when they’ve already long died

Floating On All Sides

New mantelpiece, pinewood as heart's custom;
A waning fire's bed, her girl loving thwarted—

 ...I've sparkled my fingers' approach to this hearth.
I've kicked too long at its dousing birth.

As her skull's cracked by charcoal intent shears,
The Wintertime's frost slowly pulls out of her tears.

...You're the shadow in me, my upturned face—
Passing through this pine; this death; this hell of fireplace

For so familiar, so close, you seem in its embers;
I swear you're with me tonight in the deep ether.

...As the ashes seed to this wastely churn—
The flames may fall, but darling, I remember; you burn.

Completing Infinity

And comes the time, oft many sought with blinded eyes that squint into the dark, searching for that in tight grasp with faithless hopes that it be found. 

No grudge shall I bear as a traveler his mug, that holds within above a cracked below, a drink for the voyage whose starting is the ending to the eye and mind. 

In the open sky I shall hide all that has been, is and no longer morrow. 
To remind a scribbler to forget friends and foes. For the mind’s cask shears upon such thought of great appeal. 

My time.
To no longer will, but bend, or even break. To be deaf to all, with only hearing for one with a deafening whisper. As the tongue exits its cave, loud be my scream as the bewitching hour. 

Search no more. 
By your follicles, you would tell as words deny you might… of this scribbler you once grappled in sight. 
As he dissolves in his dry ink, I beseech thee again.

“Search no more”.

Nature's Flower Runs Through My Fears

Nature's flower runs through my fears,
Her old seasons there interceding
On the silver gray blunt of the shears,
Where the stem—sharpened by night—is keeping
For the day's rain starving in the clouds;
This time, it needs your weeping.
When coming down, there's no damnable sound—
A forest saved, though unholding's deep;
I remember the lasting growth in Winter how
She swayed for my practiced meet—
The Spring, in her way, walks on near
Beside a street's slab of raw concrete;
And green or blue mists look like tears—
Nature's flower runs through my fears.

House of Cards

You say you need a strong foundation, my friend? 
On a god or guru, you cannot depend.
It is empty and false, and I beg your pard,  
But, it will all fall down just like a house of cards.

Don’t expect support from your family or kin.
For a chance at the throne, they will do you in. 
They will light the match, and your place will be charred.
You’ll have a pile of ashes, not a house of cards.

You may build a fine reputation with your friends
When a malicious rumor spreads, and then it ends. 
As it comes crashing down,  thanks to this canard,
You’ll find it was not much more than a house of cards.

You say you have a loving little wife at home?
Come home early, and you’ll find her with Jerome.
You’ll find your house was constructed from discards,
Just when it falls down, that broken house of cards.

You have yourself to build an identity or ego?
I hate to break this sad news to you, amigo:
Life’s shears will tear it roughly it into shards,
Leaving you again with a broken house of cards.

The Maker

The Maker : Knit and Purl


The Maker wields the needles
 of predestination and free will,
One in each strong, talented hand. 
Knitting the yarn and thread of our lives
Into the fabric of time with such love.
Knit ,with predestination;
His will is done.
Purl ,with free will;
Our choices made.
Knit and purl, purl and knit,
The pattern known to Him and yet 
allowed to be as it is, who it is. 
It is when choice agrees with His will
That the pattern becomes 
as beautiful as He intended. 
Until the tapestry of lives
 form who we are, why we are.
Interlocking with others,
Becoming part of the
 pattern of all things.
The Enemy cuts
With sharp shears of deceit.
 Maniacally ripping jagged holes.
The Maker patiently mends
With healing truth and love.
Knit and purl, purl and knit
Until we are whole again.

Making Lights Minichu

A cage of sweet burning fire gold
Hung on night's swinging shears—
A golden flame still a twin so

In Orion's wordless mouth,
Its romance by dark christened
By rain; she's been cut out

Glisten
Chills in
Glimpses

A cage of sweet burning fire gold,
Its romance by dark christened,
Glimpses

~Ethereal Lanterns~

What was THAT, Gramps

  Ancient arts so intriguing
    hieroglyphs, cave drawings

  Stone flints at end of spears
    two combined, a pair of shears

  Primitive though, their communication
    the imperiled art of ~ conversation

When Sheep Play Poker

"A straight!  Two-three, five-six and eight,"
but Mildred bleated, "Ain't no straight;
you, Alice-ewe, are one dumb rump."
Bright chortles burbled round the stump
till Jingles raised, "Two straws of hay,"
too rich for Fay-Fay: "I can't play,
though, know that ram hauled in by truck?
I thought he gave me … lotsa luck!"
Suzette guffawed, "Not luck you meant."
"Perv, pigsty's where your mind has went!"
"Well, we all know why he's brung here …"
"Too bad it's only once a year." 
"Who poofed?" sneered Molly, "That's so crass!
Wow, someone dined on rancid grass …"
Embarrassed Mildred urged, "Just play,
let's brighten up this gloomy day."
Belle brooded, "Yeah, dawn brings the shears …"
"Well you look cute, nude tail to ears."
"And your sagged udder shows you're old!"
Tense silence fell--that barb was bold--
but Alice, heedless, claimed, "Two pair!"
which drew the wrath of Mildred's stare:
"Two fives, a two with ten on top?
You're one stupid mutton chop …"

Driven Fate

Wind, the Barber,
   shears the trees
   decisively
with naught but
   his own  Fall design
   in mind,
Refusing imaged   glass
   for his reluctant clientele,
insisting    they trust
   his ancient  artistry,
Born of  a driven 
   fate again
   and again.

The Gulls Maw

A raw red crater of hunger;
the clacking tongue a buckram spear
shaken at all comers.

The gulls mouth is the gull,
the gullet is the gull
the torso, the snowy pale blue plumage,
that dark under-feathering
all the body of the bird
a perfect bow
for the arrowing beak
and its raucous bugle.

A neck stretched for greed;
above that gorge, hard-set and avaricious,
glint eyes long allied to savage seas.

The bird has the primal scream
of a scavenger,
the gall of the harassing hunter

- and yet is admirable,
sleekly beautiful, often graceful,

until,
rigid jaws agape
we regard its wide-open craw,
wince
as those shears clamp down
on some still wriggling shred.

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