“Landscape with Gnarled Tree” by William Lester Stevens
wood shot through with knots
gnarled by labors of conscience
limbs weakened by guilt
too many storms took their toll
too little time to earn grace
Bones
All posts tagged Bones
“Embodiment” – Glass Sculpture by Eric Franklin
morbid bones
dressed with
ossified cartilage
work to create
crystal skeletons
ringing with
durable pain
sharp tortures
of tuning forks
resonant screams
piercing torsos of
tendons and tissue
unbearable noise
filled with agony
no one can hear
save the microbes
those tiny mad
toxiform agents
who hum their
malevolent chorus
to alchemic sounds
of a deep dense
infection that
transforms the
once supple
structures of bone
into hard rigid
girders of glass
From my book Ephemera
“Speeding Train” by Ivo Pannaggi
a train runs through my brain
it rattles the glass of my spine
driving payloads of pain across
tracks of dark neurons that spark
in black cracks of dead bones
it keeps picking up speed racing
farther away from the moment
they split me apart just to lift out
my heart leaving microbes
to seed their invasion and set
down to feed on my parts that
once dreamed of a gentle old age
(originally posted December 2013)
X-Ray Telescope Photo by NASA
(Originally posted February 2014)
I remember when pain
was an athletic choice
not a sanguinary sentence
imposed by a starburst
whose bleeding mass
fell from its immanence
water weight crusted
jagged energy piercing
the bones that protected
failed centers of me
“Ribcage”
Painting by Bluefingers
From deviantart.com
robust resolute bones
built a chest full of pride
made a sturdy stout grille
to protect a brave heart
till microbial fires
burned bones to black ash
a degenerate torso now
painfully paltry of form
and a time-damaged heart
sewn and patched and
repurposed for fear
beats in craven distress
as vigor of youth turns
embarrassed by age and
debility gone is its shield
robust resolute bones
“Glowing Glass Skeleton”
Sculpture by Eric Franklin
From 9bytz.com
morbid bones
dressed with
ossified cartilage
work to create
crystal skeletons
ringing with
durable pain
sharp tortures
of tuning forks
resonant screams
piercing torsos of
tendons and tissue
unbearable noise
filled with agony
no one can hear
save the microbes
those tiny mad
toxiform agents
who hum their
malevolent chorus
to alchemic sounds
of a deep dense
infection that
transforms the
once supple
structures of bone
into hard rigid
girders of glass
Vintage 1938 Erector Set
Photo from vintagetoys.com
my poetry builds me
erector set steel
pieces bolted to pieces
maneuvered by gears
turned by dint of
electric emotions
imagined arrangements
of moveable postures
endowing me stature
enabling my reach
where my body can’t go
my poetry stands me
replaces the bones
lost to time and disease
lifts me back to the world
I remember
as well as some others
I never have seen
conjured thralling and whole
from a near normal mind
where reoccupant thoughts
evict pathogen pain
La Brea Tar Pits, California
My days are but loans
Of time that God owns
Till the scale of St Michael swings
I flew the high zones
Peered down on men’s thrones
But this eagle’s now folded his wings
My body bemoans
The sins it atones
Through pain that due penitence brings
Like a sackful of stones
My bagful of bones
Sinks into the tar of stilled things
Photo at centuryone.com
bitten bones
tell the tale
cultural schism
competing authorities
rallying minions
behind bitter pennants
till waxing and waning
popular tides
dismember and pile
incarnated dogmas
in body part boxes
tucked amid urns
neatly forgotten
Poesy plus Polemics 