Tag Archives: Work

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Labor of the Heart

A labor of the heart

Is fickle for breaks time may yet impart;

Yet hearts all given up to labor

May find that flesh bears yet no flavor

Such that withered bones

Gilded on those rusted thrones

Reach evermore for other’s flames

To find the hearth within lies tamed.

No soul, within mortality leashed

Can ill afford to rush time’s feast.

Ours may yet be to wonder why,

But think too long and there you’ll lie.

Life’s purpose is the lurking feeling

That man must find his own life’s meaning.

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Stooped Celebration

"The Bootmaker," image property of Rob Hanson.

Stooped celebration

Thread by thread

Stringing out the walkers

Life of leather—

Toiling at the standing grace

Of other souls.

 

Breaths ride the strands,

Divinity locked in rasping labor;

Noon passes stained glass

With a smile—

the hands know but the one song,

they cannot sing it with regret.

* My latest work for One Shoot Sunday. Based on the prompt from my interview this week with HDR photographer Rob Hanson. Be sure to check back in next week as well, for part two of the interview and more of Mr. Hanson’s lovely work.

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Transmission: Life

Time for another quote of the week, and this time it’s a long one, boys and girls, but a good one. The quote comes from one D.H. Lawrence, and it’s got all the things people quirk an eyebrow for these days: life, work, sex…

D.H. Lawrence, image care of Wikimedia Commons.

As we live, we are transmitters of life.
And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow
through us.

That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards,
Sexless people’ transmit nothing.

And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work,
life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready
and we ripple with life through the days.
Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a
man a stool,
if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding
good is the stool,
content is the woman, with fresh life rippling in to her,
content is the man.

Give, and it shall be given unto you
is still the truth about life.
But giving life is not so easy.
It doesn’t mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting
the living dead eat you up.
It means kindling the life-quality where it was not,
even if it’s only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief.

~We Are Transmitters by D. H. Lawrence

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Standardized

Just a moment

If you would—

Never dread the dedications

Just a moment for a lifetime

Bubble “D” for destiny—

All suits and servility,

Master of the masterless

Hordes your own deception

Initial here to sign

This life into the hands

Of an angry world.

Not to worry—

You weren’t using it.

* For The Thursday Poets Rally, Week 33.

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Repetition

Hunched shoulders to the

Sun of my iniquity,

The voiceless being cries “arise!”

And my back bows

Like a farmer to his plow

Repetition of identified

Annihilation of character

Gradually weans the child-mind

To thoughts of nonexistence—

Sometimes I think I’m going insane,

Then I wake

And do it all again.

* My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another.  Enjoy!

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A Man, A King

What is a man but

Flesh and bone gave breath;

Such mortal beast

To buck beneath

The reins of my imagination.

Cry out for me, ye bloodied hands

I am the stones arise on emerald hills

My flesh the graven gold

Of toiling back and grinding axe.

My blood be thee and thine

All rivers flow to mine

Call me God, for all I see is all I am

A fire in the earth

Tempered in the sea of sable madness

Yet to swim, yet to circumnavigate

My ambition, this thing of steel

No land might ever satisfy

The hunger of my soul.

All songs, they sing for me

Each note a dirge unto my memory.

Each breath, praise, for it is mine divine

Providence, they say, a god-in-man

Whoso could ever hope to say

I could not turn the tides.

I am the horse that rides,

I am the bolt that flies,

I am the child that cries,

He whom only fate defies.

Behold my majesty and yet despair

Of he who masters everyone

And nothing, and no one, still.

For the latest Monday Poetry Potluck!

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Finished at last!

“Man tames not vengeance; vengeance breaks the man.”

It is with these words that the fruit of my labors begin. Thirteen short stories led me to this point. Months of labor led me to this point. Long nights. Early mornings. Rushing to heel with pen and paper in hand, to scribble down a passing thought, a fleeting fancy. Inspiration and dedication have led me to at last announce the completion of my dearest creation to date: my novel.

“The Hollow March” has been my been my obsession. At long last, I have finished it. Laid down the final word, breathed in a sigh of relief and adoration, and leaned back to run my eyes down my work. Over 200,000 words, more than 350 pages strung end to end in our dear friend Microsoft Word (using friend loosely here of course). Backed up, filed away, stored and ready and waiting.

Tonight, and for the next few days, I may take a dramatic bow and vanish into the great beyond. For now, I feel a great need to celebrate, before the next stage begins. Editing is just around the corner, and it is all the longer. But the work is down, the words stretched end to end, and I am content, for the moment, to rest.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend. May our rapidly descending Fall find you as well as it has found me!

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Set Me Free

Set me off into the Black

far beyond the stars

set me off into the Wild

far beyond the wilderness.

Set me free of mortal hearts

and weighted thoughts,

so low, so low,

and break these chains that

bind me to this coil—

what life,

what prison

now is this?

Press the suit and

straighten up that tie,

you are a man, it says

but you are just a boy

playing at a world of

mysterium and drama that has

devoided itself of plot.

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There is a key

to thee and thine and mine,

and nestled just behind that door

is freedom yet incarnate.

In a breath, breathe—

so few have ever tasted

the freshness of the air—

recycled reconfigurations of reality—

that will be your paycheck please—

and this feeling is not falsified,

unbound, unguarded it yearns

for the taking—just breathe—

and feel the air,

feels, felt, feeling

this momentary being—

all I want is to breathe

and to feel, yet to be,

to stretch beyond perception

and feel the days beyond

that calendar—no shifts scheduled here.

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No vacancy,

sincerest apologies

this mind is mine and yet

one waits beyond, yet yours—

this mirror of a soul you grasp

what a reflection is it not?

There is the dawning,

the rain is falling down

and through the swirl of purple haze,

these diamonds dribble through the

emerald leaves, like tiny lovers—

in your caress, this breath unbidden

slithers through my chest

and down into my roots—

I am born again, stretching

for the clouds.

Air, give me air,

Prayer and dream and reverie

are forever in the field—

give me space to work.

My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another.  Enjoy!