Diatribe

“Underwater River Rocks” by Dixie Distefano

 

brooding stones suffer anger

ignored by the sun beneath waters

too rushed to give them a care

left to wallow in mud of neglect

all their prettiness lost to admiring

eyes of the world noticed only by

coldblooded philistine fish with

their miniscule brain-hearts too

full of themselves nothing left

but to wait for the next glacier

era to scrape them from dull

deep obscurity raising them back

to their freed rightful place among

nature’s own objets de vertu

derisively flaunting their sheer

indestructible lifeless antiquity

mocking pathetic mortality

walking the crests of creation

 

 

From my book Bohemian Scents

At Long Last

“Agony Doubled Over in Flames on Wood” by M. Zimmerman

 

look for me underneath rocks
heavy maladies crushing my bones

behind desiccate trees where I
carved my pain into the bark

listen for stiff labored breathing
amid soundless sobs of the night

when you find me
be gentle but kill me

I won’t love you
but I’d still be grateful

when a star burns its last
it curls into itself

becomes small in forever
black speck a cold cinder

unseen but at long last
now free of the fire

 

 

From my book Bohemian Scents

Stone Wall

“Rock Wall” by Jeffrey Smith

rural bastion
heavy with history
man marks his ground

Erratics

Granite Glacial Erratics at Home on a Farm – photo by Jack McConnell

they walked a long way to find sunshine

escaping from frigid hard whiteness

for warm soft embrace of the greensward

old souls of stone who remember creation

immigrants holding their alien dignity

standing their ground against xenophobe

cries of uncomfortable winds with their

freehold convictions of personal liberty

handsome with self-possessed strength

pleased to anchor an everlast change to

traditional notions of peaceful community

At Long Last

look for me underneath rocks
heavy maladies crushing my bones

behind desiccate trees where I
carved my pain into the bark

listen for stiff labored breathing
amid soundless sobs of the night

when you find me
be gentle but kill me

I won’t love you
but I’d still be grateful

when a star burns its last
it curls into itself

becomes small in forever
black speck a cold cinder

unseen but at long last
now free of the fire

Granite

 

Chapel of St Michael
Carved into Granite Outcrop
At Roche Rock, Cornwall, UK

 

 

born in hellfire

bedrock of continents

quarried and dressed

by muscular artisans

wanting to lend

timeless sense

to ephemeral life

something durable

left as a permanent

trace of brief transit

by beings organic

and conscious some

everlast evident

monument to an

invincible spirit

no matter how

wishful its quality

 

 

From my book Onionskin

Stone Hard

Devil’s Den, Gettysburg Battlefield
Photo by Bob Tablack
From pinterest.com

sleep among stones

hear their dreams

drain their pains

they have witnessed

all history everything

man ever said ever did

weighing heavy on

igneous memory wanting

release from inertia

from crushing encumbrance

of terrible knowledge

that holds them in place

these dependent disabled

deep densities holding

old answers to every new

question under the sun

pressed into service by

curses of cosmos and time

as reluctant receptacles

ugly and hardened by

dead blood and deeds

of pseudo-intelligent aeons

yearning to give back to man

what he gave to the stone

Dreaming Stones

Rocks with Hoar Frost
Atop Mount Wellington, Hobart, Tasmania
Image by photoeverywhere/stockarch.com

gray with hoarfrost

bearded rocks cast

a somnolent gaze

across rivers of time

tuck their chins into

worn granite collars

staving off winds of

December to coolly

consider the hours

that make up their

motionless eons spent

watching the random

parade of evolving

events tandem suns

whose revolving through

risings and settings

deride the millennial

stasis of stones so for

now they will quietly

contemplate sleep for

a season and conjure

perhaps during igneous

dreams some ingenious

new means to facilitate

motion when spring

warms and wakens

their faces if even their

movement comes

only one fractionate

inch at a time such is

hope as it lives down

and deep in the least

of inanimate things

Reformation

“The Maine Coast”
Photo by Sandra Wescott
From 500px.com

from a bench
upon Maine’s
rock-hard coast
watching stones
take their rest
in the rapid decay
of each sound
between waves
feeling empathy
for their relentless
barrage by the
deadly soft tides
smashing microns
from continents
changing the
shape of the
face of the earth