Jars of Oil; Sands of Rhyme

Jars of Oil; Sands of Rhyme

by Rob J. Blevins


The Shattered Earth that Cries Like a Wreck Below

How's that? I'm awake. I'm awake.
I slept from hearing wants
One man wants what another man has
One woman wants to be like another man
One world of power cries out for more
And it's not like darkness doesn't breed itself
The power runs the darkness. 
How's that? I'm awake I promise.
I've heard it all.
One man wants to be me.
One man wants to be free.
The other holds him down and asks for diamonds in his crown.
The kings cry out that they are peasants
And the peasants will never be a king.
The earth is spinning; I had hoped it would.
As I had hoped it would, it does not, 
But beckon for lust in the night?
Of flightless abandon it can not stop crying out for more
Of unpleasant anger and disruption
I have heard it all.
How's that? I've been here.
I can't see less than I do, 
Or close one eye
To open the rain clouds for you: stern prayer
Defend thyself if you don't accept amends.
Alms would not be enough to stop you from being poor
You would find your way hastily through jungle or desert right back 
To your station.
And what more can be asked of the one who has heard every request?
I can't simply respond with all that all wants.
Wants are juvenile, as easily as they cancel out one to another
For a kingdom here prays ruin on the next while the next prays ruin back.
The thief prays the house is unguarded and the lord of the house prays for angels posted.
I said it plainly and it is fair, of my love thou must have faith.
Faith when your cupboards are empty.
Faith of both famine and fertility.
Faith when the storehouse is overflowing.
Have I not done enough?
Why does thou not seek me?
I must rest. While all my work is done there will be
And I say with all grace
There will be a time of rest.
I will allow no more suffering.
Oh beautiful when. Suffering was.
We are now a family.

Who Darkens Their Morning?

Live life in a great and mighty morning
When the bushes are covered in a cold and frigid dew.
The moss climbs halfway up a hollowed muscle of tree bark
Though veins dissipate in the sky to try nothing less than marking up the morning--
Who drank all the wine last night?
Was it the head that aches or the body that tremors?
Maybe we shall know when someone lifts their head,
For this morning was bright;
And now we sit alone in separate chambers.
Who darkens their morning for a better place at the dinner table?
Why cry out for less than the sake of utility, and
Is it not mechanical to trust? And--
Is it not objective to lust? But--
Is it not all that you had to fight complacently all that you never willed to be?
And to him who darkens his morning,
Not less than the clouds that cover the sun:
So easily we shun all that we have become.
Will our generations after us not despise our contempt?
Will our ancestors not weep that they had not done more?
It is a bitter cocktail,
Lift our eyes at the sight of our snapping tongues.
Quicken our hearts that the failure to decry our inward temptation.
For, it alone
Has never been more than we can bare.
Attempt not to dispel the rumors we have given you about our climb.
Who darkens their morning for a better bed at night?
Is it not a waste to let go of the planks in our eyes,
Shouldn't we gather them up and cover our faces?
We have no better place to be than in our own wallow.
We have become the very beasts that we hunt.
We darken our days for the peak of another dream,
And what is that dream that gives us any heart?

Twisted Temptation

Oh what is not twisted temptation?
That which wraps itself like a mighty snake
Around our happy homes
Will never stop to resist its own temptation.
It licks its lips, but leaves its teeth 
Sharper than its wit.
Of which it needs none.
It needs only its prey--
That most simple prey that ever found itself sprinting toward the kill.
That blind and motionless wreck of a puzzle.
The punchline of a riddle.
The stick in a dog's bite--
So easily snapping in half
As if the moon were baking it with no need for heat
As if the icicles from another vestige had frozen its will to live.
Camped out in a puddle of thick mud
That the prey had swamped inside.
Gulping and cherishing with full gluttony
Trying not to be unstuck with full avarice.
We are but a home to such twisted temptation.
We are but a skull and some divisions of the mind
That our mood could so easily defeat our humility
And tranquility.
Over nothing.
Over not a thing, and the thing in itself.





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