Draped trees, etched in crimson fire,
Sun’s last kiss, as day retires.
Scattered clouds, in dazzling dress,
Raindrops hang, a jeweled caress.
Rainbow’s Bridge, across the blue,
Violet-green, and reds anew,
Sahara’s winds, a whispered sigh,
Hot sand dances underneath a fiery sky.
Snowy peaks, in crystal light,
Flakes like stars, taking flight,
Frozen frost, upon the pane
Winter breathes, a chilling reign.
Warm mist rises, soft and slow,
Kissing earth, a whispered flow,
Fog ascends, a silent shroud,
Nature’s secrets whispered loudly.
Hailstones ping, like needles fine,
Tiny tines, a silver wine.
Thunder cracks, a lightning’s tear,
Gray skies weep, the winds hold fear.
Hurricanes, with winds that moan,
Ocean’s wrath, upon the stone.
Trees uprooted, in twisting dance,
Twister’s fury, given a chance.
This silhouette is a stage so grand,
Nature’s drama is close at hand.
From fiery dawn to frozen night
Her beauty is vast, her power, bright.
So let us stand in awe, and humbly see,
The silhouette of nature, wild and free
She spreads the butter
on a square of toast
with scratching impatience,
smearing and slapping
the hardened bread
with a dainty butter knife.
She uses a fork like a harrow
in the jelly jar,
leaving lines across the top
where she dragged it across,
then glops it on
unevenly.
She uses a fork.
because she likes to lick the bits
between the tines,
and feel the hard metal
with jelly in her mouth.
Scrape, scrape, scrape
with the butter knife again.
I love her hurrying hand
that orchestrates
this action every morning.
The cinnamon toast
is slightly burnt,
and her sleeve is damp
from the coffee spill
on the linoleum table.
A crumb clings to her jawline.
She takes a guzzle, not a sip
from her cup that says:
“The Queen of Everything”
and smiles at me, knowingly.
In the backyard, the goldfinches
returned to our feeders.
A small female
turns her beady eye
toward us
with shared understanding.
Today a Poet needs to cast
a hook with many tines
To reel in those who’re lulled to sleep
with cautionary lines
These days a Poet needs an edge
much sharper than before
To cut through all the excess flesh
— and save the metaphor
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2018)
The tines of the rake
comb through a dispersing tumble.
Ocher clumps form random hillocks,
most slip through the iron teeth
dancing drunkenly away.
I was called into the rushing air.
Physical work with the dead and dying
is a ‘calling’ isn’t it?
The newly deceased keep falling.
Maple leaf bones crackle underfoot.
I scoop their remains,
brush an autumnal cerecloth,
shake the dead into swirls of afterlife.
Today, I fancy I am a caretaker
for the changing seasons,
yet an autumnal age divests me.
the years turn
and I am more exposed.
Next year I will buy a leaf blower,
my wife may need it
when I fall.
Baby blue balloon,
looks like a globe,
topped
with a girly, pink bow.
It’s floating up
with pop music;
with key tines,
our hearts dropped.
The dulcet drum spins;
the lyrics heat up.
I got to have a shoulder to rest
My head when
I am tired
I got to grieve
The loss of my sister
That past away
I got to say thanks
To my friends for
Supporting me all through the
Years
I got to cry some tines alone
I go to understand
That heaven waits for us
And that there is a
Place for us in heaven
I got to help those in need
Now
They helped me before
I got to understand that God
Will answer my prayers
When I pray to him
I got to have some sunshine
Warming my skin
I like to feel the heat on my skin
It is Summer anyway
plink, plink, water in the sink
sinks slowly into budding suds
torturing the pans and fork tines
who want cascade - show on the road
plink, plop, hands over ears, now stop
but slowly the spatter of drops
like the slow go of a rain storm
keep habitating, repeating
their ear-splitting, liver-bellied
bullying of the spoons and cups
the apron-covered giant turned
off the faucet, threw in the rag,
then the sponge, ew…her hands with gloves
now each piece, that is us, is scrubbed
and ah, true running water-rush
each of us towel dried, put ‘way
from nightmarish brutality
we rest…we rest..until lipstick
lands on the side of grinds in cup
and pan slams onto surface heat
in other words, we get beaten
then comes water in sink, awaken
the bully who sleeps eight hours
look forward to vacation, hers!
Kalimba notes drift out
To my delighted ear
As if the Matobo plains
Were conveyed from afar.
The tines - reverberating -
Complete an ethereal bar.
Each bar - artfully plucked -
Speaks kindly to my heart.
Why raindrops drip and drop in time,
not timorous; divine.
A splash, playful
in a pond of koi brass.
Tines of Sankyo, priceless precipitation;
A plink and plunk, Chopin;
“Till the End of Time,”
that is why raindrops
hold their gravity,
until the fruit
of their musicality
must be mined,
be longed
by great golden fish
with open lips
excited by the weather
without human palms
to catch, a catch
that croaks and grunts,
that fills the pond.
The gun seems gun-shy in this space;
where deer hides hang on rustic walls
and granddad-tick-tocks beat, instead
of hearts in hollowed skins. The gun
a “trophy-bagger” in its rack,
a loud-mouth predator at rest,
this motherless, brother-less thug
perceives no pity-pangs... the gun
now quiet, buckshot empty, cold.
Above the stove’s phoenix soul hangs
an antlered head with prideful tines
the man, with bear-paw hands, had won.
A fox in freeze-frame-trot, a stiff
with cat glass eyes, attests his prize.
Indeed, like litterfall they fell,
unseen his haunt in hunter gear, his gun
a junkyard dog of steel. I say
they're beautiful in life. He says
they’re beautiful in death. Between
our words — a stand of pine — the shot!
that brought the shock of ammo air
that rib-cage-ripped and broke the breath,
that hurled the crows against the sky —
the blast that felled the 10-point buck that failed to sense your goddamn gun!
Yeah... blame the buck his reckless pose
and buckled throes. You felt the king!
Behind tight trees you sat with dawn
in sniper-silhouette. The gun
felt nothing; no remorse, no joy
—it, too, hangs upon the wall.
'His Love'.....is a Love we can Depend upon, it feels good to know this, Amen.
Feels so good to be Loved by You…
faith’s mirror reflects ‘us’ in its view.
Awesome You! …whereby before my birth…
I was prepared for days of sharpened tines
Ere, now in the midst of storms unfold…
You...use..the gale to ring hope chimes
Even the tides that will surely rise
are duly subject to Your command…
Yea, as they surge and break upon me…
because of You…somehow, I’ll stand
There’s pleasure in reading Your letters…
ardent with yearned warmth and fare
Through Your Word…I am taught…
You are Greater than onslaught’s jeer
More than I ever imagined I could
I cling to the promise of seeing Your face…
When in that hour of Destined Glory
You escort me…to that Eternal Place
As partaker of Calvary’s Redeeming Stew…
O God, feels 'so' good to be…Loved by You!
Galatians 2:20, Jhn 3:16, Jer 31:3
copyright; jmsbell-7/15/21
The Fork said to the Spoon,
I want you for my wife.
The Spoon said to the Fork,
I just got married to the Knife.
The Knife said to the Fork,
Best keep your tines to yourself.
The Fork said to the Knife,
Don't try to put me on the shelf.
The Spoon said to them both,
Can't we all just get along.
So they all laid side-by-side,
And together made a Tong.
Once the “go to guy”
I linger, ever hopeful
Of a need to fill.
Long for the
Tickle
Of long grass
Crackle
of fallen leaves
Scent
of the garden.
I am older
my handle
slightly splintered
my tines
bent
several missing.
Mocked
by motored newcomers
I wait
knowing
there are still times
that situations
will call for
The “go to guy”
John G. Lawless
©1/8/2023
Ancient river, passing song
always here forever gone
rippled by flirtatious winds
disappearing round its bends.
Crooked fingers drawing lines
tributaries, twisted tines
counting coup on drum roll stones
ancient rivers heading home.
John G. Lawless
©7/6/2022
Fork fell in love on a tablecloth in the middle of winter
Beef and noodles were being served, but he barely noticed
A gorgeous newcomer was on the table, pink and fabulous.
That cannot be a rose! He whispered to spoon, who ignored him.
Spoon and he had been an item once upon a time, rainbows ago.
Is that a rose? He queried knife. Knife slapped hard against his tines
As they pushed vast quantities of beef down a grotesque man’s gullet
The man was corpulent and gassy; he certainly needed no more beef.
Rose winked at him, catching him off guard. He was gob smacked.
I love you he mouthed to the pink rose. She giggled, a flirt she was.
We never saw either of them again, they were renegades and daring.
Fork and rose ran off that night, never to grace a dinner table again
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