Short Quarried Poems

Quarried figures who guard the shore
Dead eyes linger on a world before

...

Read More

waterside vigil
buffalo nears water hole
lions crouch low nearby

three-pronged ambuscade
buffalo calf culled from herd
swift pincer attack

quarried prey springs forth
stressed calf serpentines about
lead lion cuts angle

driven toward snare
flanks assaulted from both sides
vise tightened prey clasped...

Read More

Beneath the graffiti littered by the years
and the fatigue signed by a thousand cares
Through the scratchings of so many tears
that were summoned or caught you unawares
Under the mottles by done days quarried   
and the shadows writ by a jealous sun  
where disappointments linger unburied  
and age is making its relentless run

My tired eyes can still trace your first face 
by the thievery of time irreducible...

Read More

Stone steps
To the top of the tower -
At least a hundred -
In a spiral staircase;
Regularly spaced,
Worn by many feet
And time,
Yet as strong as the day 
They were quarried
Out of local granite.
Taking the polished brass
Handrail, I started to climb;
Eventually, 
Stopping midway
To catch my breath,
And massage my aching calves.
Reaching the telescope at last, I
Smiled and gazed up at the starry sky.

Jack Horne for Linda-Marie’s contest...

Read More

I can not dwell on where I've been
Or where ten years I'll be
The roads are gone, the rivers dry
Nameless faces I see

For if the path led straight back home
I wouldn't know the way
The cobbled stones, the quarried hill
My mind begins to sway

When sunrise turns to ashen waste
And trees, they fail to leaf
You'll find my soul amidst the stars
My poems, what's left of me

05/04/25

......day before Mom's Angel Anniversary 
...

Read More

I  tried to tie, I said, I said,
some rocks to billowed clouds.
In this I was a fool, a chump!
For rocks, as is both well allowed
and widely wist,
pass always through these vapor stumps,
and gathered mists,
and won't be bound with lumps.
So all I’ve really done is stone the earth
with quarried things that loud ker-thump,
become the cause of people being
sore bereaved with grievous bumps.
Oh no! Look out! Please mind your head!
And look out poems!
Gazelles upon you tread....

Read More

The day now split
  drifts off unpromised,
  the dream remains with me

Our words as jewels 
  now treasured pawn,
  their tickets burning free

The nights by measure
  mornings fled,
  those times you woke and lied

My heart remains
  my own to wed,
  your wound still deep inside

From spells you cast
   upon our gift, 
  and quarried into stone

The past is black,
  the future gone,
  —this present mine to own

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)...

Read More