Whittled Poems | Examples

Einstein

Once there was a young boy
who did not learn at the same pace
who did not race in the same
predictable race – while his peers
played with fish and ball – grew,
traditional degrees from short to tall,
his world turned at a different length
rate;  more different, were his
timeless seasons – artfully Time
he took in his hands, whittled
with imagination into novel shape
and form – for him, Time was
never seen quite a constant norm -- 
in fact, could be reversed, or quickened 
into infinitely….

Mother Bird Star Warmth

Seems so surreal...billions of beings
held in place by invisible forces 
atop a giant spinning orb
dependent on the charity of
mother bird's star warmth.

It's a golden time for earth and mankind 
conceiving and evolving

creating and mastering fantastic things
like flying machines and curing disease
searching for the key to the speed of light
planet hopping just on the horizon
unwinding the helix-dreaming in spacetime.

Ego, like algae bloom, enters the gilded room
disturbing the divine and pure nature of things
warring and serial raping...rinse and repeat.
Mankind so volatile so violent so unkind 
Careening toward another mass extinction.

The beginning and ending deeply set in scripture
trimmed and encrypted whittled down to imperfection.
With an ungodly amount of editing in between.
No wonder mankind seems detached and indifferent. 

Mother bird star warmth will remain 
long after the golden tide of mankind subsides.
She'll pulse her warmth to the next icy orb...
hopeful that grace will finally overcome ego.

Beauty And Madness

Beaming sculpture whittled by awning clouds over blue sea
Ethereal beauty tinged in brown,  green and yellow shea 
Aerial bliss, flaunting on leaves-sunkissed
Under and over my wings, I breathe your scented mist
Talons I sprawl, your branches I grip
Yonder sanctuary, your soothing shield I trip 

Amongst beauties of nature,  your heights majestic
Narwhals of blue seas,  unicorns of Atlantic
Dying depths of roots underlying masses so cryptic

Marshes of hidden paradise, your abode of beauty
Attached is madness of ethnic humanity 
Desecrating pristine ages of dreamt forest
Nesting on mantels, burning unrest
Eaves of succulent leaves, carved barks and branches 
Streaming on saps and man's cold blood 
Sweet and sour blend of beauty and madness

Whittled Mind

The whittle mind of self-reflection
Within a tiny bit of self-doubt
Coming from a stressful day
Life has its ups and downs that way
Can't say I enjoy it
can seem to do without it

Just another up and down day oh well

You look at life differently
With  total inside wit
get ideas and let them flow
which life has one doing some days
Can't seem to do without them
Once again you feel funny
run around with money
Again it has its ups and downs
Seem to always turn it around

Chorus....

A War Beneath Skin

Cells held secret ballots in my bones,
voting for mutiny in whispers.
Cancer, that drunk architect,
scribbled collapse into my blood's blueprint.

They built black gardens in my lungs,
where breathing became a treasonous act.
Tumours whittled my ribs into broken bridges,
pinned eviction notices on my veins.

Every chemo drip was a gamble—
waging war against a traitor
that wore my own face.
Hair fell like forgotten promises.

This was no battle to win;
only a siege to outlast.

Eulogizing

A lover and a brother are heavy.
Recounting the contents of life is work.
A vessel holding unaccountable dust
may be volumes for a biographer’s notepad.
   “I miss she real bad!”
Whittled words.
Ponderous, leaky expression
surrendered by gross vulnerability,
and maybe a short lexicon.

A lover and a brother
and their handheld tomb,
this wild man pair in tropical print-
cotton tops mirroring loopy island ladies
under pineapple/banana coronets-
standing shoeless upon burning shores,
bearing their dead love,
gone sooner than hope had promised...
fish feed in a jar.

Whittling Down

As we age, we whittle down
The things that we can do
Or the ways that we can do them
So we last the whole day through.

I’ve whittled down my exercise
And how much I can drink.
My energy’s been whittled 
And my brain’s begun to shrink.

I’ve whittled my acquaintances,
Though some were not my fault
And my memory’s been whittled 
Or locked in a keyless vault.

I’ve whittled down my travels
And my need to shop and buy.
Some hobbies have been whittled,
Which I loved; I don’t know why.

My knife is sharper than my mind
So I won’t be belittling
The ways it goes about its job,
As time goes by, of whittling.

Goodbye to the past life

Feeling the sun on my face
Feeling free with music up in the trees
I hear you call my name and it becomes a race
Knowing I can no longer be at ease

Hoping you don’t read between the lines 
Pretending it's easy to go on
Back to the house I’m usually confined
How to continue when all my lifelines are gone

I didn’t know much worse it would get
I wish I could have warned you
But now to tell you he is not a threat
I get to say you made it through

Younger self, she will hold you snug
With your personality larger-than-life whittled away with a knife
You deserved so much more, may I suggest a hug?
There I knelt and waved to her and walked away from that past life.

P O E T , up and running phatic expressions, up and running it is!

Mirror 
mirror 
on the wall,

the pre decided fairest of all

When I utter fiancé ,
Did you see all kinds of fees incurred?

When I utter Feodor 
Fees and beyond?

And a lightyear and a “buraq”
With fifty turned five…

Did you witness Mosay bargained for you only
Never cared for me there
For a malar rash try?

So, black heads remover, do not be nosey
Happen in the adjacent vicinity
A science fair and phonetic verona
No black hole entry...


Too much in a day for a simple queue
For failed process of elimination (POE)
In an idiom try.

Even though whittled down, nothing more than a noise walls
For a city control (ctrl).

Becoming our Parents, Take it Easy

My mother and father never wavered in their routine. After each one of my siblings sprang into life, my father sat on the porch and spit ‘Day’s Work’ tobacco juice down his chin while my mother snapped beans, hummed softly, and smiled. Even throughout the years, as old friends passed on, they whittled and spit or hummed and snapped. As one-by-one each of their children found lovers and moved away, they remained steadfast. They refused to yield to sorrow. They paid no attention to poverty. They ignored the propaganda of government officials and world potentates. I can’t help but wonder if they ever had dreams of city lights and all-night diners; of drive-through this and 50% off that? Did they fantasize about having a dollar in their pocket, more meat on the table, or just being able to visit a doctor when ailments became more than home-made remedies could fix? Or were they way too busy to worry about such things. 

Change those things you can
Don’t worry about the rest
Take life as it comes

Sprawling in America

Trucks hauling away defunct Malls.
One city has been transported to another,
until superimposed, only the name are different.

Freeways chase endless miles,
looking for more things to shift,
shlep and shoulder.
Ninety per cent of everything movable
is assembled by 100 percent of new renters.
Oil, cattle, and inflammable gaseous toxins,
are handled by cab radios, satellite commands,
and shredding rubber.

The main drags compete to be anonymous,
wear the same masks, many disintegrate
or morph into closed forever signage.

In the concrete encircled,
whittled-down woods,
lovers try to imagine a better place to live,
one that is not yet on the road.

Bayou

A Limerick Poem

AABBA

A limerick
A little windowpane trickled on the left behind diamond
A cosmic milky way, solitude, and Bed, bath and beyond
The word, to and fro, and surreal, a tenant, and the zealous zeal!
Where about of these, all , felt as drops for basil bill, a Duncan hill
A hue in the very first, in a hymn song? For Life, whittled.


3-9-2024
(Updated)

Elder-Less Earth

Never thought I'd live long enough to see a holocaust.
A holy slip of land whittled into a divining rod for carnage and death.
The footsteps of Jesus filling with blood and moral decay.
Perfect words lost in the throat of scorched earth days.

If the elders weren't busy  
{slaughtering each other gleefully}.
Their children would be playing hide and seek, amongst the olive trees.
There would be instantaneous peace...for the first time in history.
No more boots on the ground or purge in the air... 
Only the sound of merry, going round and round without a care.

Quiet

on the waning edge of day
sunset rolls white clouds to pink and amber strands
sifting back and forth like a quilt's overlay of color
a sprawling vista
                      unstoppable
the quiet glide between hope and trepidation
 
bended sky to quell settling light
in gold, pink clouds
                       quill thin, like tangled trails of choice
these warm stretches of glow
drifting
into scattershot lives

sunset whittled back
as night cuts the canvas
remaking itself
ethereal
into the the soft weave of another darkness
strapped to another day




Poem composed April 1st/2023

Hammerklavier

Beethoven smashes one piano after another.
He shears through keyboards,
a peasant scything hay.
The composer's fingers listen
through touch,
they become deeper, more blunted,
a vibration of mallets.

Frown the brow,
push the plow
make music drive a steamroller.

His apartment is disorderly,
tools and equipment
are hidden in Dresden figurines,
in elderly Delftware,
ball-peen hammers crammed
into the whittled stems of goose quills.

Augers, grinders, and rotary tillers
are rendered into themes and motifs.
Wrecking crews hum and stamp,
tables thump out allegro dissonance.

Into this din and demolition
comes a heavy sonata
the hard-nosed 'Hammerklavier'
bulldozing a blunt pathway
into cramped 19th century streets,

where in the absence of safety barriers,
all but one turns a deaf ear.

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