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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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!

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!