Short Slabs Poems

Unexpected, no less bucolic,
between the slabs of buildings,
surprising  morning rooster crowing!...

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Hark!
Peanut butter and 
Miracle Whip collide in coitus 
between two slabs of pumpernickel.

Disgusting eugenics!...

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Caustic soda smells!
Teeming with logs, bark and slabs.
Motors at the vats

Pump and pump strong til
Suddenly!  Circulation
Stops by the wood rats....

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Are we just meat and butter
Dull slabs for the cutter
Do genes contol hiddenly?
Have we no power or free will
What science concludes
Is fed back to it on a loopy chain...

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Dusk to dawn and dawn to dusk
Turns carbon chassis into withered husk

Faded breaths fade from memory
Must this be our destiny?

Time may yet erode the flesh and bone
But lifeless words lives on in slabs of stone...

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when you read a poem
consider the probability
that what seem to be chopped off phrases
and shreds of dangling sentences
are actually jagged blocks and slabs
of porous prose lumped and crammed 
in a page in a manner that's ...


           ...  not entirely


                    ... unintentional....

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Rhein II - The Photograph
-----------------------------

Set between two slabs of green
the slender Rhein is seen.
If she goes from left to right
is no one's surest known.

The sky is overcast above
and no birds there are seen.
I am an admirer, sure,
of green and then the green.





12/29/2018...

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And just as I had forgotten,
What lay behind these concrete slabs,

Behind these symbols of despair,

Through a crack,
A green shoot sprang up,

And I knew this was not the end,
That there would always be more,

That however deep it was buried,
Life, Love,

Would always find

Away

John Roberts...

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A star is born while a soul is torn on the Hollywood walk of fame,
With dreams that matter or a life that's shattered in slabs of pavement pain,
For some it's to much and others never enough were falling stars are drained,
Ferocious appetites will consume for a life that may ruin them on the Hollywood walk of fame....

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The cold November morning blows in on the face,
	a kiss of longing.
She pulls you in,
	"Be mine. Be mine."
She calls each bundled body by name.
There can be only this morning, this moment.
There can be only this busy street, these frozen slabs of sidewalk.
There is only the gray sky above 
	and the sweet perfume of a cold breeze....

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Written August 21, 2013


There's a girl in the garden
She's messing with your rose bed
Plucking weeds out from your head
And watering the seeds in your bed

But where will she wander
When the roses are dead
Will she come back for more
When they turn back to red

She can run all alone
Write this story in stone
On concrete slabs
Of skin and bone...

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He had earned a black belt in tae kwon do

   Breaking slabs of concrete with his big toe

      And butting planks with his head

         Had left him nearly brain dead

            Glazed eyes resulted from many a blow

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved

Placed No. 7 in Linda-Marie's "Let's Limerick" Contest - October 2010...

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Oh, the wicked  romance,
oh, the abusive dance,
oh, the self-destruction,
oh, the love that lasts.

All the wilted roses,
all the concrete slabs,
all the memories faded,
all the moments frozen in the blizzards path.

Oh, the wasted chances,
oh, the cherished romance,
oh, the resurrection,
oh, the kiss of death,
oh, the dance of love,
oh, the love that lasts....

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Summer is ending; we can feel it 
But we pretend we cannot
Slater our corn-on-the-cob with butter
Cutting generous slabs of watermelon
Ignoring the Back-to-School sales flyers stacking up in our box
July is the last hurrah.
The month we celebrate as wildly as we can
Knowing reality will soon set in 
And school will begin 
Because August is peeking her head in July's window....

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Somewhere beneath
Your lowest low
The soles of your feet
A stone’s throw

I reside between 
 Parallel slabs
Cement and stone
Helpless, trapped

I stretch my limbs
Brushing the surface
On my tippy toes
Grasping for purpose

Reaching for reason
Striving for hope
For affirmation 
To help me cope

The bitter truth
Bites once more
Robbing the joy
I was fighting for...

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By their graves I kneel
And speak to the stone slabs
As I listen to the wind
Their beds are under sun and rain
Tiny babies to grandparents
Who speak no more nor do they sing
They're in slumber with no pain
They've left us their tools and violin
Finely chiselled words on their tombs
Shine them till they lived
As recorded by kith and kin
You, young ones, preserve it
For in you we all trust...

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The girl kneels on the concrete slabs.
Dipping her hand into the water-
She spooks the carp within.
Laughing, she drops in tiny crumbs of bread,
That float around like little boats.
Suddenly, the carp are back,
Gobbling the bread from below.
She sits back, hugging herself with joy.
She’d love to take up a fish
And holding its slimy body
In her tiny hands.
She’d plant a kiss upon its scaly head....

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A crystal-pin prick at the beginning
a monumental vagueness at the end
the art of carving peace seems quite lost again
in between granite slabs-a tangle of black tragedies
and tiny clusters of downy light upon a peaceful being 

The selfishness of flesh drifting atop the brine  
in an endless maze of the triggered mind
where blue devils tap dance so raggedly
around the splintered sundial of God time
...

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A froth of turquoise topped waves
pummeled the lava stone
grinding asphalt-black slabs into bits which hugged the waters edge.
Skeletal shards of white coral were scattered
amongst the dried, scorched after birth.
Relentlessly, the ocean pounded
leapt with a jet-engine roar into the air.
Balancing droplets of salt water
upon lichen covered shelves and prominences of pitchy rock 
Growth in the cauldron of the Crone....

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A slab of cracked concrete pavement
Permanently fixed in a row
Of similar, less damaged slabs
Exists a miniaturized realm.
Within the fracture grows a few,
Tiny clumps of unnoticed grass 
And a single dandelion.
Deep within the dark cavity
A colony of zealous ants
Ruled by a single fertile queen
Work in well defined labor crews.
A team of seven working high
Atop the yellow nectar globe
Begin their long laden descent....

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a quire or two, 
or three, may be
uncharterd
uncounted
discounted, maybe
tablets
stone shards
heavy slabs of me
rain soaked reams
sloughed off of me
shoulders of clay
unweighted may be
separate from morass
the mass of me
plunged heavy and sunk
in a literary sea
of words great men
spoke to me
I look for words
so meanings i'll see
and write, and write,
and write, maybe
so inner thoughts
so quiet may be.

03/06/2017...

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Rain was falling on granite rocks
Cleft slabs frozen in winter
Thaw in spring with seasonal changes
A single drop of rain now seeps into tears
Then it flowed freely
Its puddles turned into seas

Evaporated into the sky
The storm swept it up
And carried it through rainbows and thunderstorms
Passing the lightning
And hurtled through the tornado
Tempest of Destruction

And it fell once more
Landed in the fields
Dew on oak leaves...

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The Summer sun sings
Above shingle-shine,
Simmering while sinking,
Casting cool shadows
On heated concrete

The playful breeze blowing,
Catches foam cascades,
And tossing wild mists,
Crashes raw delight
On sunburned faces

The fountain rushes forth,
Spring-spouting,
Water on water,
Pelting stony slabs
With falling force

Echoing in tune,
Splash-patter footsteps
Sprint a rippled run,
Drowning the day with
Saturated sound....

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Through the windshield,
a splendid view.
Even though moving 
along highway lanes 
at a rapid pace, 
we seemed to advance 
in slow motion.

The sky enveloped 
us in a cocoon,
folding in on all sides.

Powder puff clouds
dotted a canopy of clear blue,
dollops of whipped cream
on slabs of Jell-O.

In spots, stretched thin,
as though a giant invisible broom
swept through the wispy puffs

and smeared frosting
on a Kool-aid cake....

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Big Sur Jade Cabochon

Broken from off underwater cliffs
Slowly pushed by tides and currents
Found by me during a low tide
While searching along Jade Cove
In Los Padres National Forest
Cut into quarter to half-inch slabs
The cut again into an octagon
The octagon grinds down to an oval
A flat surface down to concave
Grounded first with coarse wheels
Then again with finer wheels
Buffed and polished to a high sheen
With powdered sapphires
A new Big Sur Jade Cabochon...

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